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 Our Holiday 
 Among the Hills 
 
Our Holiday 
 Among the Hills 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES AND JANET LOGIE ROBERTSON 
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS 
 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
 
 MDCCCLXXXII 
 
LOAN STACK 
 

 7'HIS level turnpike road ive daily tread, 
 With its high hedges hiding from our view 
 The features of the lafid we journey through. 
 
 Inspires — not dreariness alone — but dread. 
 
 Let but a cloud eclipse the blue overhead, 
 A thicket dull the distance, or a new 
 And unexpected turning change the hue 
 
 And current of our hopes — and peace is fled! 
 
 — Then let us leave the road awhile, my friend I 
 How all my being wakes, and, pulsing, thrills 
 
 To this pure mountain air I As we ascend. 
 How sink to insignificance our ills ! 
 
 Gladness and gloom in perfect beauty blend- 
 Life is a lovely landscape FROM the hills ! 
 
 927 
 
The shepherd Moses ON THE HILLSIDE saw 
 A green buss bleezin\ bleezirC aye awd ; 
 Nae reek rase up, nae ashes fell adoun, 
 There was nae sough d' fire, nae cracklin^ soun' ; 
 But clear an' constant was the steady fiame, 
 An^ unconsuni'd the buss, an^ aye the same. 
 
 Ye needna doot the shepherd glowred wi^ awe 
 At sic a strange suspension 6* the law 
 That dooms to swift destruction bai^n or byre, 
 Biggin^ or buss thafs grippit ance by fire. 
 In this he saw the prese^ice d his God, 
 Ari' felt the gnmd was holy zvhaur he trod. 
 
 That selfsame miracle does yet appear : 
 We see it /' the spring d every year. 
 When whin arC bonnier broom are fairly bloom'' d, 
 An\ wavin\ burn the same an'' unconsu7n''d 
 — But unregardit d baith man an^ woman. 
 Quite unregardit, for the sichfs sae common ! 
 They seeH a gate — alangs^ the public way. 
 In gowden beauty bleezin\ bleeziii^ aye, 
 Till every hill-tap, craig, an sprit ty knowe 
 Owre Scotland b7'aid like fiamin' altars lowel 
 Yet wha draws near wV reverential feet ? 
 Or is there ane that worships but to see't ? 
 Nae ihocht is theirs that God^s within the buss, 
 Or that the grund is holy brightened thus ! 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PART I.— SONGS. 
 
 
 PACK 
 
 WITHIN THE SKJ^RGAARD, 
 
 I 
 
 THE MUSE OF POETRY, . 
 
 2 
 
 ENCHANTED GROUND, . 
 
 5 
 
 A MORNING LOVE-SONG, 
 
 6 
 
 William's bridal, 
 
 7 
 
 vox amoris, . 
 
 8 
 
 CRAIGIE GLEN, 
 
 9 
 
 THE DAWN OF LOVE, . 
 
 lO 
 
 BLUE-BELLS, . 
 
 II 
 
 TO MAISRIE, . 
 
 12 
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS, 
 
 13 
 
 FLOWER-FLAME ! . 
 
 14 
 
 THE WALL-FLOWER ON TMI 
 
 UAM, 15 
 
 THE lover's WALK, 
 
 16 
 
 THE FISHER, . 
 
 17 
 
 THE TRYSTING-TREE, 
 
 18 
 
 THE KNIGHT AND THE LADY 
 
 19 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 SONG OF THE CLOVER BLOSSOM, 
 SABBATH ON THE HILLS, 
 A RAILWAY ACCIDENT, . 
 CLOUDS, .... 
 HYMN FOR THE NEW YEAR, 
 TO A FRIEND, . . . 
 
 1^ 
 
 79 
 80 
 
 83 
 84 
 85 
 
 PART v.— HORACE IN HOMESPUN: or. 
 The Friends and Fortunes of Hughie Hali- 
 BURTON, A Shepherd of the Ochils. 
 
 HUGHIE'S ADVICE TO HIS FRIEN' DAUVIT TO 
 
 ENJOY THE FINE WEATHER, 
 HUGHIE REMONSTRATES WITH DAVIE, — A 
 
 DOUR CRITIC, 
 
 HUGHIE DRIVEN IN BY A TEMPEST : HE 
 
 DEFIES THE ELEMENTS FROM BEHIND A 
 
 JORUM, . 
 
 HUGHIE's ADVENTURE WITH A LION ; WITH 
 
 A SPECIMEN OF HUGHIE's INDUCTIVE 
 
 REASONING, 
 
 THE DOG-DAYS: HUGHIE's EXCUSE FOR A 
 
 DRAM, 
 
 HUGHIE HAS A RIPPET WITH TIBBIE, . 
 HUGHIE EXPOSTULATES WITH MARGET IN 
 
 BEHALF O' HIS NEEBOR JOCK, . 
 HUGHIE NEARLY KILLED BY THE FALL OF A 
 
 TREE : HIS REFLECTIONS THEREUPON, 
 HUGHIE's WINTER EXCUSE FOR A DRAM, 
 
 86 
 
 92 
 
 94 
 
 95 
 97 
 
 98 
 
 100 
 
 lOI 
 
CONTENTS. xi 
 
 hughie's views on war, . . . .103 
 hughie's astonishment on hearing that 
 
 . HIS YOUTHFU' FRIEN' WULL, A QUATE STU- 
 DENT LAD, HAS RUN OFF TO THE SOGERS, IO5 
 
 hughie's ADDRESS TO A JILT — WITH A POST- 
 SCRIPT OF REFLECTIONS, . . . . I06 
 
 hughie's SPRING SUNSHINE DASHED Wl' 
 
 SHADOW, .107 
 
 hughie's ADVICE TO TAMMY TO LIVE LESS 
 FOR THE FUTURE AND MORE FOR THE 
 PRESENT, 109 
 
 hughie's thoughts ON LOVE, SUGGESTED 
 
 BY SANDIE's plight, Ill 
 
 HUGHIE JILTED AGAIN : HE DERIVES CON- 
 SOLATION FROM PROPHECY, . . .112 
 
 HUGHIE BIDS FAREWEEL TO LOVE, . .113 
 
 HUGHIE OFFERS HIS CONSOLATIONS TO HIS 
 SISTER MEENIE, WHASE HEART IS Wl' 
 DONALD IN LOCHIEL, II5 
 
 HUGHIE AS A PHILOSOPHER : HE ENFORCES 
 
 THE GOLDEN MEAN, 1 16 
 
 HUGHIE IN MURNINS : HE LAMENTS THE LOSS 
 
 o* HIS frien' andro, . . . .118 
 
 HUGHIE MAKES IT UP WITH TIBBIE, . . I20 
 
 THE CRITIC AT LAST RELENTS : HUGHIE AS 
 
 AN EAGLE ! 121 
 
PART I.— SONGS. 
 
 WITHIN THE SKJiERGAARD. 
 
 Here, in my little boat embayed, 
 
 Unseen but safe, I lie, 
 And watch, beyond the headland's shade, 
 
 The mighty ships go by. 
 
 Full swells the blue, the brimming tide 
 
 Sparkles the sunshine clear; 
 And to and fro, and free they glide, 
 
 And far away, and near. 
 
 To them the sweep of all the sea. 
 
 And all the sweep of sky ; — 
 This little boat and bay to me 
 
 And room enough have I 
 
 A 
 
SONGS. 
 
 Yet still — though hill, and head, and cliff 
 
 My narrow welkin shear — 
 To witness from my rocking skiff 
 
 The star of eve appear ; 
 
 And still — though in the sheltering lee 
 
 And shadow of the shore^ 
 To feel the tides of the great sea 
 
 I will not venture o'er ! 
 
 THE MUSE OF POETRY. 
 
 They have brought her into the town : 
 Can yoJi wonder she is become pale ? 
 
 I. 
 
 They enticed her away from the mountain, 
 Where lightly she frolickt a fawn. 
 
 From the truth of her face in the fountain. 
 From peace, and the blessing of dawn. 
 
 She had run with the light step of childhood 
 O'er moorland, and meadow, and lea ; 
 
 And hers was the range of the wild wood, 
 Where boldly she sang, and was free. 
 
THE MUSE OF POETRY. 3 
 
 III. 
 
 In the shade of the hazel she rested, 
 She couched among wild flowers and fern; 
 
 But the stars only knew where she nested — 
 The stars, and the high-sailing em. 
 
 She was free as the wind, and as froward ; 
 
 And fresh as the rose, and as fair ; 
 And her speech, if outspoken, had no word 
 
 That truth did not wish to be there. 
 
 V. 
 
 But they saw her, the beaux of the city, 
 And proffered her praise, and a crown ; 
 
 And she yielded — the more was the pity — 
 She yielded, and went to the town. 
 
 VI. 
 
 And the grace of her virginhood vanished, 
 And all the sweet dreams of her home ; 
 
 And her friends were forbidden, or banished, 
 And freedom to rest or to roam. 
 
 VII. 
 
 They had crowned her the Siren of Singers 
 — Yet never a song sang she now ; 
 
4 SONGS. 
 
 For the crown that was gold in their fingers 
 Was lead, and a load on her brow. 
 
 VIIT. 
 
 And her cheek became bloomless and pallid, 
 The sparkle was lost from her eye ; 
 
 — All in vain to her aidance she rallied 
 Her mem'ries : they came but to sigh. 
 
 Can they blame her, those men without pity, 
 For cheeks that are haggard and pale } 
 
 For they lured her away to the city, 
 And sought of her song to have sale. 
 
 Oh, the kiss and the clasp of the moonlight 
 
 Lay softer by far on her brow 
 Than the gyve — though it looks so like sunligh t- 
 
 Which presses so hard on it now ! 
 
 Can they wonder, her prestige recounting, 
 Her voice has been silent so long, 
 
 Who enticed her away from the fountain 
 And source of all solace and song.? 
 
ENCHANTED GROUND. 
 
 ENCHANTED GROUND. 
 
 Still by the banks of the stream I stand 
 
 That borders the land of Truth ; 
 The skies are blue, and the winds are bland 
 
 And blow from the shores of Youth. 
 Rich are the blooms in the amber air, 
 
 And the forest favours green, 
 And aye the wings of an angel fair 
 
 Flash through the golden scene ! 
 And I hear the bells of Hope that seem 
 
 To sprinkle the air with sound, 
 Now far away in the depths of a dream, 
 
 Now clashing all around I 
 
 Flow on, flow ever, Fancy dear ! 
 • Sweet stream I love so well ! 
 Blend with the tones I yet do hear 
 
 From Hope's air-belfried bell ! 
 And live, ye winds of youthful years 
 
 Still, fostering, let me find, 
 Though on my body age appears, 
 
 Your freshness on my mind ! 
 
SONGS. 
 
 And still be thy bright wings displayed, 
 Where sometimes I may see 
 
 And feel their magic, loveliest maid ! 
 Angelic Poesie ! 
 
 A MORNING LOVE-SONG. 
 
 I. 
 Woodbine that clingest fair 
 At my love's casement — 
 Sweet be thy savour 
 For sake of her bower ! 
 Blossom that swingest there 
 High from the basement — 
 Oh for the favour 
 Thou hast at this hour ! 
 
 IL 
 
 Swallow that wingest the 
 Fleetest of small birds — 
 Thou at her waking 
 
 Canst see how she seems ! 
 Laverock that singest the 
 Sweetest of all birds — 
 Thou at day-breaking 
 
 Canst break on her dreams ! 
 
WILLIAAfS BRIDAL, 
 
 Morning that flingest bright 
 Gold in the fountain — 
 Oh with thy radiance 
 T' enrapture her eye ! 
 Breeze that upspringest light 
 On the green mountain — 
 Oh with thy fragrance 
 T' enfold her and die ! 
 
 WILLIAM'S BRIDAL. 
 
 "May happiness be in that ha', 
 
 And bliss be in that bower, 
 And Fortune's golden treasures fa* 
 
 Upon them every hour ! " 
 Oh never since the world began, 
 
 And love on life had sway. 
 Shone sweeter face or fairer sun 
 
 Than did that bridal day ! 
 "May happiness be in their bower, 
 
 And bliss be in their ha* — " 
 It was the worship o* the hour, 
 
 The wish o' ane an' a*. 
 
SONGS. 
 
 And never cloud aboon them hung 
 
 That sunny bridal day ; 
 And William's bride-elect was young 
 
 And blithesome as the May ! 
 Oh he was brave, and she was braw, 
 
 And birds aboon them sang ; 
 Baith boor and baron blessed the twa — 
 
 And wha would wished them wrang ? 
 — Yet William mounts the weary stairs 
 
 To sit and sigh his lane, 
 And a' thae bonnie hopes o' theirs 
 
 Are blastit, ane an' ane ! 
 
 VOX AMORIS. ■ 
 
 The birds are singing. 
 The woods are ringing, 
 
 And hark ! . . . hark ! 
 They're laughing, the, waves o' the sea 1 
 
 — Merrily pipe, thou mounting lark ! 
 The girl I love loves me! 
 
 The sun is glancing. 
 The waves are dancing, 
 
CRAIGIE GLEN. 
 
 And look ! . . . look ! 
 They're smiling, the flowers o' the lea I 
 
 — Merrily laugh, thou prattling brook ! 
 The girl I love loves me ! 
 
 CRAIGIE GLEN. 
 
 The hazel's in her summer green ; 
 
 The wakening woods, so fair 
 With honeysuckle and with gean — 
 
 It's oh that I was there ! 
 
 I see as in a haunting dream 
 
 The white anemones 
 Dim-shivering by the dark glen-stream, 
 
 Amid the gloom of trees. 
 
 And boyhood's days dawn back again, 
 And boyhood's thoughts return, 
 
 As when I roamed in Craigie Glen, 
 And fished in Craigie burn. 
 
 Oh days o' joy, with little pain, 
 Oh happy thoughts were these ! 
 
 — They come like fragrance o'er the brain, 
 Or long-lost melodies ! 
 
SONGS, 
 
 How humble were the highest hopes 
 That heaved my bosom then ! 
 
 — My gold was on the primrose slopes 
 Wide-scattered through the glen ! 
 
 Now passions rage, and anger glooms 
 — But sinless days were these, 
 
 And passionless as the pale blooms 
 Of the anemones. 
 
 And these in dream break in once more 
 
 Upon the cares of men — 
 Like voices from a fading shore 
 
 We'll never see again ! 
 
 Oh to indulge the boyish mood, 
 
 With but a boyish care ! 
 My heart is in the summer wood 
 
 — My feet will soon be there ! 
 
 THE DAWN OF LOVE. 
 
 A YOUNG god met me yesternight 
 On the scented sun-dried hill, 
 
 A young god kissed me on the height 
 And my lips are burning still ; 
 
BLUE-BELLS. 
 
 And it's oh ! it's oh ! 
 The morning glow 
 
 Is pulsing through my frame ! 
 And it^s oh ! it's oh ! 
 For the Lapland snow 
 
 To cool the burning flame ! 
 
 He pressed a soft red lip to mine 
 
 On the moonlit mountain height, 
 He touched me but with his lips divine 
 And vanished from my sight ! 
 But it's oh ! it's oh ! 
 The morning glow 
 
 Is pulsing through my frame ! 
 And it's oh ! it's oh ! 
 For the Lapland snow 
 To cool the burning flame ! 
 
 BLUE-BELLS. 
 
 Thoughts too tender to be spoken 
 
 Flood my fancy gazing there, 
 Where they, from their kindred broken, 
 Deck that mountain bare ! 
 
2 SONGS, ' 
 
 — Blue-bells ! crowding in the crevice, 
 
 What a trustful look ye wear, 
 On the rough breast of Ben Nevis 
 Leaning, free of care ! 
 
 Bonnie when the sunshine glances 
 Like a hope when hopes are rare, 
 On the cliff your shadow dances 
 —Bonnie past compare ! 
 
 Joyous life to you's a duty, 
 
 Tossing freely, tossing fair, 
 All your blue tumultuous beauty, 
 On the billowy air ! — 
 
 Dream of Beauty ! be about me. 
 
 How or wheresoe'er I fare ; 
 What were Earth — were Life without thee 
 But a bleak despair? 
 
 TO MAISRIE. 
 
 If you would deign on me to smile, 
 And dare to go with me, 
 
 I'd bear you to a fairy isle 
 Lies lonely 'mid the sea. 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 And there afar from scenes of pain 
 And hid from human view, 
 
 We'd practise whether of the twain 
 Was happier — I or you ! 
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 In a hollow of the hills, 
 Green as Eden round me, 
 
 By the babble of soft rills 
 
 Slumber sweet had bound me. 
 
 As I lay in bliss entranced, 
 
 Faces, fair and smiling, 
 On me in a vision glanced 
 
 — All my soul beguiling. 
 
 Come again, dear angel-dream ! 
 
 Never to be spoken ! 
 What though pleasure only seem ? 
 
 Though the charm be broken 1 
 
 He with wisdom were at strife 
 That would " lichtlie " dreaming ; 
 
 Half the joys of waking life, 
 — What are they but seeming ? 
 
14 SONGS. 
 
 FLOWER-FLAME ! 
 
 One touch of Summer's golden torch 
 
 And all the land's a-bloom ! 
 — The mountain-ridge, the garden-porch 
 
 With roses burn, and broom ! 
 
 See where it runs along the lane, 
 
 Flees waving o'er the waste. 
 Expatiates on the mountain plain 
 
 With purple-spreading haste — 
 
 It is the fairy floral fire 
 
 Down-flashed from Summer's sun, 
 Keen-quivering with fulfilled desire 
 
 And liberty begun ! 
 
 It leaps the grey towers of the wood. 
 And bounds from branch to bough, 
 
 And radiance, ripe and many-hued. 
 Consumes their gloom ! And now 
 
 It is the fairy forest-bowers 
 With Summer's lamps a-glow ! 
 
 It is the dawn, the day of flowers 
 With every bud a-blow ! 
 
THE WALL-FLOWER ON THE WALL. 15 
 
 — One stroke of Winter's leaden mace 
 
 Amid the Summer's fire, 
 And down the bright flames drop apace, 
 
 Dull, deaden, and expire ! 
 
 They vanish from the blackened hill, 
 And from the woodland walk. 
 
 They drop into the droning rill 
 From off the barren stalk ! 
 
 Sobs the lone wind — for ne'er a bloom 
 
 Of all he kissed remains ! 
 It is the ghoulish land of gloom 
 
 Drenched with December rains ! 
 
 — Eternal Summer ! from thy heights 
 Reach down thy torch, we pray ! 
 
 The world is cold without thy lights. 
 — Or come thyself, and stay ! 
 
 THE WALL-FLOWER ON THE WALL. 
 
 Soft the moonlight's silvery fall 
 On the ruined castle wall, 
 Low the wind's complaining tone 
 Round each worn and wasted stone ! 
 
i6 SONGS. 
 
 Here of yore at gloaming-fall, 
 Shadows on the moonlit wall, 
 Youth and Beauty wandered twining. 
 While the Star of Hope was shining ! 
 
 Then, oh then, sweet love was all ! — 
 Castles rose at Fancy's call, 
 Music filled th' enchanted air, 
 Faery blossoms flourished fair ! 
 
 Softly may the moonlight fall 
 On the Wall-flower on the wall ! 
 Long and low the wind complain 
 — Love can ne'er be here again ! 
 
 THE LOVER'S WALK. 
 
 The sunset fires of evening glow 
 
 Behind a gathering cloud, 
 And winds that from the norlan' blow 
 
 Go past me piping loud. 
 But down by the meadow, and over the burn. 
 
 And up by the witch's tree, 
 With many a traverse and many a turn 
 
 My path this night must be ! 
 
THE FISHER, 17 
 
 Between me and the Druid stone 
 
 A hare scuds o'er the grass ; 
 A cushat, with contented moan, 
 
 Upbraids me as I pass. 
 But through the dark planting, and out on the 
 moss, 
 
 And over the benty lea, 
 With wall to leap, and water to cross. 
 
 My path this night shall be ! 
 
 The moon looks up with frightened glower. 
 
 Dim-glimmering on the night ; 
 And what is that by the haunted tower? 
 
 — My girl in ghostly white ! 
 My troubles are over, my travels are done. 
 
 The fears of the mid-mirk flee ; 
 The girl I love, and the only one, 
 
 —She's true to her tryst with me ! 
 
 THE FISHER. 
 
 The fisher lights his evening pipe 
 And steers his boat to shore ; 
 
 His wife now from the window looks, 
 Now waits him at the door. 
 
 B 
 
i8 SOJVGS. 
 
 Oh low may be the fisher's life, 
 And small and poor his store, 
 
 But large his love for that dear wife 
 Waits for him at the door. 
 
 The sunset paves his path with gold 
 — Now what could heart have more ? 
 
 Heaven smiles upon him at the sea, 
 And human love on shore ! 
 
 THE TRYSTING-TREE. 
 
 Their shadows to the hills return. 
 The sheep are in the pen. 
 
 And there's a gean by Craigie-burn 
 Is scenting all the glen. 
 
 Oh braw the birk, and tall the fir. 
 And rich the rowan-tree, 
 
 And sweet the lilac's lavender 
 — But aye the gean for me ! 
 
 And I to see that bonnie tree 
 Would walk a mile and ten, 
 
 And after biding there awee 
 Walk blithely back again 
 
THE KNIGHT AND THE LADY. 19 
 
 Yet not for bonnie blossoms white, 
 
 Nor graceful girlish air 
 So lovely in the dusky light, 
 
 I call the gean-tree fair. 
 
 The dear, delightful, darling charm 
 
 That makes me praise it so, 
 God and good angels keep from harm ! 
 
 — But whaty you must not know ! 
 
 THE KNIGHT AND THE LADY. 
 
 The knight rides merrily forth to fight — 
 Oh but the birds sing cheerily ! 
 
 The lady weeps from morn till night 
 While the rain falls wearily. 
 
 The knight wins love and high renown — 
 Oh but the birds sing cheerily ! 
 
 The lady's tears still wimple down 
 As the rain falls wearily. 
 
 The knight comes back all gay of heart — 
 Oh but the birds sing cheerily ! 
 
 The lady in mirth must bear her part 
 Though the rain falls wearily. 
 
SOA^GS. 
 
 The knight he knows his fame is spread- — 
 Oh but the birds sing cheerily ! 
 
 The lady knows that his love is dead, 
 And the rain falls wearily. 
 
PART II.— SCENES. 
 
 OUTWARD BOUND. 
 
 Keddas iiicolumem, precor, 
 
 Et serves aniituE dimidium viece. 
 
 — HoR., Car. 3, Lib. 1 
 
 She speeds through southern seas ; 
 
 And William in the bow 
 — His white hair by the steady breeze 
 
 Blown forward on his brow — 
 Sees other scenes than Scottish trees 
 
 And Scottish burnies now. 
 
 II. 
 
 Forward he seems to lean — 
 As if with eager eyes 
 
SCENES. 
 
 To anticipate the future scene 
 That far before him lies 
 
 Beyond the line that sweeps between 
 The ocean and the skies. 
 
 III. 
 
 What marvels lay aside 
 
 Their mystery to him ! 
 What famous islets are descried 
 
 On the horizon dim ! 
 What constellations o'er him slide ! 
 
 What monsters past him swim ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 Leviathan at play 
 
 Tempests the weltering brine ; 
 The Southern Cross redeems the day 
 
 With radiancy divine ; 
 And on yon rock Napoleon lay 
 
 After his great decline ! 
 
 We traced, and traced again, 
 Schoolboys, with knitted brow, 
 
 Upon one atlas with a pen 
 
 The track of that ship's prow : 
 
 — / had the fuller knowledge then, 
 He has the ampler now. 
 
SUNSET ON THE LOMONDS. 23 
 
 VI. 
 
 Down the blue hemisphere, 
 White sail ! to Table Bay, 
 
 For sake of one whom we hold dear, 
 Glide steadily, we pray — 
 
 We twenty, in the hamlet here. 
 
 Whose hearts thou bear'st away ! 
 
 SUNSET ON THE LOMONDS. 
 
 See where into the sunset far 
 
 The terraced mountains rise. 
 The cresset of a single star 
 Just o'er them in the skies ! 
 Oh that to me a dove's meek eyes' 
 
 And snow-white wings were given, 
 To reach yon hills and realise 
 The calm they have from Heaven ! 
 My soul is o'er the Vale of Leven, 
 (Though here in streets I stray) 
 Till fades the holy golden even ; 
 — The wish, too, dies away ! . 
 
24 SCENES. 
 
 Alas for earth, that all it may- 
 Is but a mood in me ! 
 
 And that when Heaven withdraws its ray 
 The mood should cease to be ! 
 
 OUR DRIVE. 
 
 The toll-road we left where a by-way- 
 Leaves room for a burnie between, 
 
 And now we look out on the highway 
 From under an awning of green. 
 
 The bees in the cherry-tree o'er us 
 Hum low, and are happy by stealth, 
 
 While hither and thither before us 
 
 Flaunt coach-loads of fashion and wealth. 
 
 They're glancing and prancing, and feather 
 And ribbon are sweeping the sky 
 
 — We sit in our arbour together 
 And smilingly let them go by ! 
 
 For we too are rich, and we know it. 
 In health and in hope and in brains ; 
 
 And hold with the old Hebrew poet 
 — Earth ours, and the joys it contains. 
 
HO LI DA YS. 25 
 
 We, too, by the laws that o'er-rule us, 
 
 Career it as grand as the great, 
 Our horses the forces that pull us, 
 
 And earth our Quadriga of State ! 
 
 Away in a curve that encloses 
 
 The golden abode of the sun, 
 Through snowflakes, and raindrops, and roses, 
 
 The steeds of our universe run ! 
 
 How swiftly the wheels are revolving ! 
 
 How smoothly we're bowling along ! 
 — Come, Janet ! I hope you're resolving 
 
 To honour our drive with a song ! 
 
 While I, with my heel on a pansy, 
 And thyme in a bank at my back, 
 
 Will finger the reins with the fancy 
 Of keeping our steeds in the track ! 
 
 HOLIDAYS. 
 
 Once more, once more again 
 On me, from city cares who fly, 
 Lochleven, like a loving eye, 
 Looks round the shoulder of the hills ; 
 
26 SCENES. 
 
 And all life's artificial ills 
 Pass from me with their pain ! 
 
 The smoke will leave a stain ; 
 
 In absence of the cleansing shower 
 The dust will dim the freshest flower : 
 Happy the heart on whom the dust 
 Of active life (for blow it must) 
 
 Grows not a thing in grain ! 
 
 Nor are those ills in vain : 
 They come upon our passions here 
 Like winter rigours on the year — 
 The purer are the daisies' dyes 
 When Spring comes round, bluer the skies, 
 
 And welcomer the rain ! 
 
 To some the breezy main ; 
 
 To some the moors and burns ; to some- 
 Who cannot go, sweet thoughts will come ; 
 To me — enfranchisement from ills 
 When gleams, as now, between the hills 
 
 Lochleven o'er the plain. 
 
CASTLE GLOOM. 27 
 
 CASTLE GLOOM. 
 
 The hand of Time, O Castle Gloom ! 
 
 Will soon be thy undoing ; 
 The Mene Mene of thy doom 
 
 Ls written on thy ruin ! 
 
 What though the Ochils round thee stand, 
 
 A bulwark firm and fast? . 
 Thy strength is as the broken sand, 
 
 Thy pride of power is past. 
 
 And of thy walls, to dust decayed, 
 
 The rain has made a mould 
 Which feeds the saddening nettle-blade, 
 
 Or wall-flower flecked with gold. 
 
 The mountain-ash with berries red 
 Looks through thy windows high, 
 
 And rain upon thy floors is shed 
 From rain-clouds passing by. 
 
 Still brawls the Sorrow round thy base 
 
 To join his brother Care ; 
 — Oh, ill-advised they chose the place 
 
 Who reared thy fabric there ! 
 
28 SCENES. 
 
 Ill-chosen was the place, the hour, 
 
 Ill-omened was the name ; 
 The sun even in meridian power 
 
 Glooms on thy rugged frame ! 
 
 — Yet once, ere time completes thy doom. 
 Thy halls with joy shall ring 
 
 Frightening the dreary birds of gloom 
 That to thy corners cling. 
 
 For in thy topmost tower to-night 
 Two hearts, made one in tune, 
 
 With Hymen's torches burning bright 
 Light up the honeymoon. 
 
 And from thy topmost window-seat, 
 When next the sun has shone, 
 
 His smile responsive smiles shall meet, 
 More cheerful than his own ! 
 
 MY WINDOW. 
 
 Where gold laburnum hangs in fringe 
 
 And fragrant lilacs blow, 
 Where resting rays with rosy tinge 
 
 Suffuse the hawthorn's snow. 
 
A/V IVINDOW. 29 
 
 Through elm-trees high in pride that stand 
 With heads that pierce the skies, 
 
 My window gazes on the land 
 That low before it lies. 
 
 Fair cultured fields in youthful bloom, 
 
 Whose freshness glads the eye, 
 With here and there a grateful gloom 
 
 Of forest dense and high, 
 With here and there a white highroad 
 
 By March winds bleached and clean. 
 And thousand gleams of water strewed 
 
 At random in between ; — 
 
 In terraces they slope away 
 
 To meet reflected sky — 
 The deep blue waters of the bay 
 
 That clear and tranquil lie. 
 The far horizon's line of light. 
 
 The sunny, open sea, 
 The distant sails that glimmer white — 
 
 How glad, and young, and free ! 
 
30 SCENES. 
 
 THE CATARACT. 
 
 See where he bursts in beauty bar and lock 
 In a fierce haste to wed with her below, 
 The gentle Elv, that steals with rippling flow 
 
 Along the deep-sunk dale ! With what a shock 
 
 His feet alight on this pink granite block ! 
 And how, half-stunned, he staggers to and fro, 
 Compelled to pause, yet passionate to go, 
 
 Till, steadying all his strength, he shoots the 
 rock ! 
 
 The hazel coppice and a belt of pine 
 
 Receive him next after his madman's bound ; 
 
 Yet still I see his great eyes, questing, shine 
 Between the branches; and I hear the sound 
 
 Of one whose lip is near some joy divine. 
 Broken, and low, and last in rapture drowned. 
 
 CASTLE DESOLATE. 
 
 On broken wall and fallen stone 
 Are grass and lichen growing. 
 
 And winds around the courtyard moan 
 Where bugles once were blowing ! 
 
WINTER: AN ELEGY. 
 
 And grey Oblivion's ey^ess face 
 Looks blankly through the grating 
 
 Where ladies once with witching grace 
 Smiled to their knights in waiting ! 
 
 And kaes and starlings build and breed 
 Where social fires were roaring, 
 
 And from the donjon, choked with weed, 
 A lark aloft is soaring. 
 
 WINTER: AN ELEGY. 
 
 1 LOOK from my lonely window 
 
 Over the snowy plain — 
 A hearse and a handful of mourners 
 
 Are creeping through the rain. 
 The flowers are dead and departed, 
 
 The memory of Summer is gone, 
 Song from the lark, and the lark from heaven, 
 
 — And the day drags on ! 
 
 My soul looks out from its grating, 
 And sees without a sigh 
 
32 SCENES. 
 
 The funeral train of youthful hopes 
 
 Mournfully pass by. 
 Health, and the joy of existence, 
 
 And the faiths that wont to be, 
 And love are dead and departing 
 
 — It's winter with me ! 
 
 THE VOICES OF NORWAY. 
 
 The cataract thundering from the airy rock. 
 
 Or shouting through the forest wild and free ; 
 
 The river roaring onward to the sea, 
 Defiant of all craft to bind or block 
 Its loose unshackled strength ; the thunder- 
 shock. 
 
 Echoed in silence round the blasted tree ; 
 
 And the black eagle screaming in his glee 
 Above the storm, which his strong wings be- 
 mock : 
 
 — These are old Norway's voices : not the shrill 
 Whistle of steam-car jarring down the street. 
 
 Nor clang of factory-bell, nor clank of mill 
 Banging and beating to a fever-heat 
 
 Of madness blood and brain ; but Nature still 
 Inhabits here, and men sit at her feet ! 
 
SUMMER ON THE LOMOND. 
 
 SUMMER ON THE LOMOND. 
 
 The silver mists of morning rise 
 
 Obedient to the sun, 
 And lo ! the Lomond — to my eyes 
 Of all the hills that kiss the skies 
 
 The dearest fairest one. 
 
 To Alps or Andes let them hie 
 
 Who slight the hills at home — 
 To Alps and Andes let them fly : 
 With freer step will you and I 
 Upon the Lomond roam. 
 
 Its ample upland lawns be ours, 
 
 Forsaken yet so fair ; 
 Its braes, its burnies, and its flowers. 
 Its long calm summer pastoral hours, 
 
 And its ethereal air ! 
 
 Oh sweet is love at eventide 
 
 In green suburban lane ! 
 But on the Lomond — time is wide, 
 And life is love, and glorified, 
 And Eden back again ! 
 
34 SCENES. 
 
 IN ORWELL ACRE. 
 
 " Sici Vitain l7i7ioc7tam per Phirima Lustra 
 Peregit Pace Dm Gatidens Hie Twnnlatns 
 Obit Roberttis Paterson — Mortem Subiit Aim. 
 Dom. 1669, y^tatis Vera 97." 
 
 Forget-me-nots around the table grow 
 — Nature's unconscious satire, for indeed, 
 What with the weather, wear of time, and 
 weed, 
 
 We scarce make out the little that we know 
 
 Of Robert Paterson who sleeps below. 
 
 Patience and spell ! And now at last we read 
 In Latin old the meagre facts w^e need 
 
 To set us thinking of the long ago. 
 
 Here was a patriarchal length of life 
 That ran its peaceful course to ninety-seven, 
 
 Begun when Shakespeare played, nor thought 
 of wife, 
 (A little tiny boy^) beside the Avon ; 
 
 And closed while Herrick, heedless of the strife 
 Of civil war, was singing down in Devon ! 
 
 1 "When that I was, and a little tiny boy, &c. 
 But when I came, alas ! to wive, 
 
 Withhev-ho ! the wind and the rain." 
 
THE LARK. 35 
 
 THE LARK. 
 
 THfi curtains of the East are drawn, 
 The sun is looking- through, 
 
 And hark ! the minstrel of the dawn 
 Is up, and at it too ! 
 
 What gushes of true song are these 
 
 From fountains of the sky 
 Flung heedless on the morning breeze 
 
 That heedless passes by ! 
 
 Was ever mortal beauty blest, 
 
 In modern days or old, 
 With half so sweet salute addrest 
 
 From lover's lips of gold? 
 
 Nay ; but did ever splendour grace, 
 
 Or smiling mirth adorn, 
 A fairer or a happier face 
 
 Than that of Lady Morn ? 
 
 Oh still, where loveliness is had, 
 
 With equal length so long 
 Will beauty make the minstrel glad 
 
 And gladness run to song ! 
 
36 SCENES. 
 
 Thou glorious poet of the dawn ! 
 
 What melodies are these 
 Thou flingest heedlessly upon 
 
 The unremembering breeze? 
 
 Could I, in human paraphrase, 
 
 But fix them in a book, 
 On which in dark and rainy days, 
 
 When thou art dumb, to look — 
 
 What harmonies should then be heard 
 Of word and note complete ! 
 
 —With thee, thou little Bird and Bard, 
 Not one would dare compete ! 
 
 A FIRST OF MAY. 
 
 It was the first of May, and from the town 
 Our young folks hastened in their best array, 
 Our young folks hastened to bring in the May 
 
 From where she loitered on the distant down. 
 
 Said one — / hope she wears her snow -white 
 crown J 
 And one — They heard the cuckoo yesterday j 
 I see her — cried another^^^/- away 
 
 Like a thin streak of silver on the brow7i! 
 
THE BURN. 37 
 
 vSo to the down we came, and here and there 
 Our little troop went peering far and wide ; 
 
 Then gathered silent : every bush was bare, 
 And snow in the bleak hollows was descried, 
 
 And new-born lambs wailed to the wintry air 
 Their feeble plaints along the lorn hillside ! 
 
 THE BURN. 
 
 Where hazel-branches meet o'erhead 
 
 In shade translucent green, 
 The burn springs from its rocky bed 
 
 And plashes cool between. 
 It dashes brightly down the den, 
 
 Touched by the morning sun, 
 And seeks the flat green fields of men 
 
 To have its work begun. 
 
 It stays not for the pink wild-rose 
 
 That bends and blushes shy, 
 Nor for the bank where glittering grows 
 
 The graceful birk-tree nigh, 
 Nor for the blue-bell, throned a queen 
 
 Amid the strawberry leaves — 
 For all the beauties of the scene 
 
 It neither stays nor grieves. 
 
38 SCENES. 
 
 It steals one look, in leaping down, 
 
 Towards the distant sky 
 Where grand and solemn, still and lown, 
 
 The cloudy mountains lie, 
 Then flings its bright young life along 
 
 The plains that thirsty be. 
 And rushes in the river strong 
 
 Towards the endless sea! 
 
 ANDRO'S GRIEF. 
 
 The winds, as day was dawning, slept 
 
 After a stormy parley ; 
 And up the sky the laverock leapt 
 
 From out the "mixing" barley, 
 When Andro from his cottage stept 
 And looked to heaven, and wept ! 
 
 I saw his face — his face was pale, 
 Tears from his eyes were breaking. 
 
 Yet neither sob nor sound of wail 
 Told that his heart was aching : 
 
 The aching heart — it knows its ail ; 
 
 But what would words avail ? 
 
THE SUN'S GOOD NIGHT. 39 
 
 His little white-haired boy had died 
 As dawned the tranquil morning, 
 
 And Andro s grief was ill to hide, 
 And yet, disclosure scorning. 
 
 He hailed me as I passed, and cried — 
 
 "A pleasant morning ride ! " 
 
 THE SUN'S GOOD NIGHT. 
 
 Over the mountain's shoulder looks 
 
 The Sun to say Goodnight 
 To all the merry singing brooks 
 
 That sparkled in his light; 
 To all the dancing waterfalls 
 
 That dashed their diamond spray 
 Against their green and ferny walls 
 
 In greeting to the day ; 
 To every hill whose gentle breast 
 
 Swells up into the sky ; 
 To every flower that seeks a nest 
 
 Amid the bent so dry ; 
 To all the brave blue-bells that swing 
 
 In every passing wind ; 
 To every bird whose wearied \vin<'^ 
 
 A resting-place can find 
 
40 SCENES. 
 
 To quiet sheep that contemplate 
 
 His beams in grassy places; 
 To children with his smiles that wait 
 
 Upon their chubby faces ; 
 To every tree that glads the glen, 
 
 Sweet birch and rowan ruddy ; 
 To happy wives, and resting men, 
 
 And every other body ! 
 
 A TRANSFORMATION. 
 
 All round a sky of dead continuous grey 
 Smothered the valley like a smoky tent, 
 Save that a small well-marked irregular rent 
 
 In the low roof let in a gleam of day. 
 
 All morning to that gap mine eyes would stray 
 For the blue freedom of the firmament. 
 And with that window I had been content 
 
 To gaze afar into the heavens alway. 
 
 But suddenly the travelling sun above 
 
 Came to the lattice, and lo ! the earth was fair; 
 
 The clouds took on the lustre of a dove. 
 Twinkled, and flew, and melted into air ! 
 
 — Such wonders works the smile of one we love 
 When we are half abandoned to despair ! 
 
TREASURE-TROVE. 41 
 
 A DREAM. 
 
 O'erburdened with a weight of woes, amassed 
 
 Slowly, I prayed — Kind spirit y grant a boo ft : 
 
 Show me that mines a commo7i care ! — And 
 soon 
 (The present like a mantle from me cast) 
 I wandered blindfold forward ; till, at last, 
 
 The land of shadows and of shapes unhewn ! 
 
 And lo ! the pale face of a frightened moon 
 Looked on a sea of faces surging past ! 
 And one sad face out of the tidal throng, 
 
 One out of millions, for a moment seen, 
 Turned round upon me as it swept along. 
 
 And a strange sudden joy altered the mien 
 — A smile sat on the lips that framed a song. 
 
 And the bright eyes spoke of a faith serene ! 
 
 TREASURE-TROVE. 
 
 Clive, walking down that gallery of gold ; 
 A shepherd in the bush, whose staring eyes 
 Half doubt the nugget at his feet that lies 
 
 From nature's secret treasure-house outrolled ; 
 
42 SCENES. 
 
 A ragged schoolboy, clutching in his hold 
 
 A sudden sixpence ; — vainly memory tries 
 
 Similitudes to make you realise 
 Her ecstasy : but no ! it can't be told ! 
 — What was my find, you ask ? 
 
 It was the hour 
 
 Friendly to love, when, seeing yet concealed, 
 Its votaries worship in a twilight bower, 
 
 That, at a crossing, at one step revealed. 
 Just standing clear of the cathedral tower, 
 
 The new moon a7'gent in an azure field I 
 
 RUS IN URBE. 
 
 Among the city sounds to-day 
 
 I heard the clacking of a loom, 
 Or thought I heard ; and far away 
 
 My heart went bounding to the broom, 
 The golden broom ! that to a town 
 
 Whose name to me is ever sweet. 
 Comes from the hillside tumbling down 
 
 And laughs along the lonely street. 
 
 I saw among the fragrant broom 
 The herd, a hardy sun-browned elf, 
 
RUS IN URBE. 43 
 
 Inhabiting a world of bloom, 
 — As once it might have been myself. 
 
 I heard the carol of the lark, 
 
 The lyric of the laden bee ; 
 I saw the silver-glistening bark. 
 
 And tresses of the birken tree ; 
 The poplars growing by the manse, 
 
 The water bubbling from the well 
 — How clear as crystal was its glance ! 
 
 How musically soft it fell ! 
 
 1 saw the school, the children too, 
 
 The maps upon the sghoolroom wall, 
 The playground — and the white-veined blue 
 
 Of God's protection over all ! 
 The linen bleaching on the green ; 
 
 The basins, shimmering in the light; 
 Shrill laughter from a child unseen 
 
 Bringing a searching maid in sight. 
 
 I heard the anvil's tinkling sound, 
 
 The smith himself was hid from view ; 
 I saw the wheel-wright's wheels so round 
 
 Set up in staring red and blue. 
 The church, the mill, the village store, 
 
 The carrier half-way down the street. 
 The casks around the grocer's door, 
 
 And Pincher winking in the heat ; 
 
44 SCENES. 
 
 The cottage-windows, bright to view 
 With flowers (in pot and box) in bloom 
 
 — And all this vision woven to 
 
 The fancied clacking of a loom ! — 
 
 The sanded doorstep, and the row 
 
 Of haddocks hardening on the wall, 
 And ** bobbin " wives that come and go, 
 
 And spinning-wheels — I saw them all ! 
 And this was in the city street 
 
 With traffic's current pouring strong, 
 Its black waves weltering at my feet 
 
 And roaring as they rushed along ! 
 
 Crack ! went a passing cabman's whip, 
 — Burst on my ears the world of din ; 
 
 The vision gave my mind the slip. 
 And all the city hemmed me in ! 
 
 THE SPRING WOODS. 
 
 In life's young ardent prime. 
 When winds were soft and skies were blue, 
 And spring was making Earth anew, 
 These woodlands I have wandered through 
 From daybreak till the fall of dew, 
 
 Oh many, and many a time ! 
 
A SERVICE OF LAMPS. 45 
 
 And now, from foreign clime 
 
 Backward returning with the heat 
 Of youth-time gone, I set my feet 
 In the old welcoming wood-retreat 
 With joy, and hear the birds repeat 
 
 With joy the same old rhyme ! 
 
 Morning and evening chime — 
 The same old joys of eye and ear 
 Invite me still, and still are dear; 
 And merry schoolboys rambling here, 
 As I did whilom fifty year, 
 
 Repeat the pantomime ! 
 
 A SERVICE OF LAMPS. 
 
 I WOKE, and chair and floor were strewn 
 
 With leaves of silver thin, 
 And at the lattice, lo ! the moon 
 
 Quite close and staring in ! 
 
 I slept, and woke again, and lo! 
 
 A glory unforetold — 
 As of a sudden morning glow — 
 
 Filled all the room with gold ! 
 
SCENES. 
 
 What glorious travelling lamps are these 
 
 That o'er my pillow sweep ! 
 — Between their splendid services 
 
 Lay just three hours of sleep. 
 
 THE EPILOGUE. 
 
 The season's o'er ; sport (save the mark !) is 
 poor, 
 
 And on the heather scarcely now remains 
 
 A single gun : already winter rains 
 Darken and drown the melancholy moor. 
 And now, where social coveys played secure 
 
 Ere the red Twelfth began, a voice complains, 
 
 To winds that sob in answer, of the pains 
 The gentle tenants of the waste endure. 
 It is a plover, wailing through the shade 
 
 Of night and rain-cloud on the upland lea, 
 Around the marsh, where in the spring it played, 
 
 And piped in summer, with its kindred free 
 In the bright sunshine. 
 
 Plaints like its have made 
 
 The moor a melancholy place to me. 
 
THE CULDEES. 47 
 
 LOCHLEVEN FROM TILLERY HILL. 
 
 Look back ! — Lochleven, and a rare surprise I 
 Long silver lines across its bosom run 
 Bright in the light of the September sun : 
 
 The rest in purple shadow slumbering lies. 
 
 Yonder Benarty, here the Lomonds rise, 
 And you may count the islands every one 
 — There, in yon castle on the island dun. 
 
 Languished Queen Mary, loved of many eyes! — 
 
 The scene, though quiet, yet is fair — and full 
 Of interest to a guide that knows his trade ; 
 
 Chiefly, I must confess, to me (and you'll 
 Perhaps endorse the opinion when it's made), 
 
 For that Servanus kept his Culdee school 
 On yon ^ lone island in Benarty's shade. 
 
 ON READING DR JAMIESON'S HIS- 
 TORY OF THE CULDEES. 
 
 Honour to them who put to rout the dark 
 Of Druid rule over our land forlorn, 
 What time to lone lona, ocean-born, 
 Came through the mists Columba's wandering 
 bark ! 
 
 » St Serfs Island. 
 
48 SCENES. 
 
 Honour to them who in a fragile ark 
 
 Nursed the true light amid prelatic scorn 
 And papist, till the Reformation morn 
 At midnight rose from its expiring spark ! 
 Now in these latter times the light again, 
 
 Menaced by controversial mists and blasts, 
 Grows dim behind the clouds, and purblind 
 men 
 Follow rush-candles while the tumult lasts : 
 — But blow, thou clear strong wind of Truth ! 
 and then 
 Shine forth, pure Faith ! on strayed enthu- 
 siasts. 
 
 SPRING FROM THE MANSE GARDEN. 
 
 Noo owre the weir the watters rin, 
 
 An' skies are saft an' clear. 
 And infant snawdraps usher in 
 
 The spring-time o' the year. 
 An' shepherds owre the hills stravaig 
 
 Atween the strips o' snaw ; 
 An' Pate would noo muil in wi' Meg 
 
 — But Meg begins to thraw. 
 
PAST AND FUTURE. 49 
 
 Noo at the schule, whene'er it skails, 
 
 They ^ar the peeries bum ; 
 An' sparrow answerin' sparrow hails 
 
 Frae cottar lum to lum. 
 — But there are caulds an' yawkin' stogs/ 
 
 An' mony a scabbit croon ; 
 An' Doctor Jalap an' his drogs 
 
 Gang scoorin' thro' the toon ! 
 
 PAST AND FUTURE. 
 
 In Spring, when hopes like primroses were 
 blooming, 
 And youth was in its prime, 
 'Twas here we talked, our cares to come 
 assuming. 
 Like fools, before their time. 
 
 We turned our faces from the past so tearless, 
 
 So fresh, and free of stain. 
 And for the future longed so blindly fearless 
 
 We never dreamt of pain. 
 
 1 Aching stumps : toothache. 
 D 
 
50 SCENES. 
 
 And now again after a seven years' roaming, 
 
 Under the same green lime, 
 We almost sigh in the dim summer gloaming 
 
 For that neglected prime. 
 
 AUTOLYCUS AND THE SWALLOWS. 
 
 Noo swallow birds begin to big, 
 
 An' primrose-flooers to blaw, 
 An' Jockie whistles down the rig 
 
 A fareweel to the snaw. 
 An' glints o' sunshine glancin' gleg 
 
 Licht up the buddin' shaw, 
 An' wastlin win's are playin' tig 
 
 Roun' ae bewildered craw. 
 
 Auld Tammas to the geyvle-wa' 
 
 Nails up a cherry-twig, 
 An' Mirren watters raw by raw 
 
 Her bleachin' wi' a pig. 
 An' yonder (he's been lang awa') 
 
 Comes Packie owre the brig, 
 — An' kintra lads may noo gang braw, 
 
 An' kintra lasses trig. 
 
A LOVE IDYL. 51 
 
 A LOVE IDYL. 
 
 Scene — An Orchard. 
 
 Idly roving without aim 
 Up the orchard path he came, 
 When, from out a corner cosy, 
 Stept and stopt him, blushing rosy, 
 Rosy with her face aflame ! 
 
 {LLe speaks — ) 
 
 Rosy ! You deserve your name ! 
 Cheek and chin, and brow and bosy, 
 — All are of one colour, rosy ! 
 
 {A Patise. Then—) 
 
 Is it shyness? . . . Is it shame? . . . 
 Shall I bless you ? . . . Shall I blame ? . . . 
 Ear and eyelid, neck and nosy ! 
 — Was it cherry-brandy, Rosy ? . . . 
 Is't a lover? 
 
 {A longer pause. No answer. Then—) 
 
 Here's a game ! 
 Well, I'll stalk him, wild or tame. 
 No ! you shall not stop me. Rosy ! 
 —Ah ! he's bolted ; yonder goes he : 
 
52 SCENES. 
 
 {Looking after a retreating figtire^ her brother 
 continues — ) 
 
 I should know that agile frame . . . 
 Rosy ! won't you tell his name ? 
 Come, you'd better ! 
 
 {She whispers a na^ne. Theft he — ) 
 
 Good for Rosy ! 
 Why, he's King of Trumps, is Josey ! 
 
 THE COUNTRY LAIRD. 
 
 (JBeattis illcy qui proculnegotiis, &c.) 
 
 Happy the man who leads the life 
 
 Of patriarch of old, 
 Far from the city's fevering strife 
 
 And from the race for gold. 
 
 He owns with pride his fathers' lands 
 — Who would that pride condemn ? 
 
 And cultivates with his own hands 
 The fields he had from them. 
 
THE COUNTRY LAIRD. 53 
 
 A soldier, when the bugle calls, 
 
 Must leap to meet the foe ; 
 A sailor, when the storm appals, 
 
 Must hurry from below ! 
 
 A lawyer must attend his case, 
 
 His client at his heel ; 
 A hanger-on, to earn a place, 
 
 Must knuckle down, and kneel. 
 
 From fear, and care, and envious hopes, 
 
 The country laird is free. 
 As to the breezy mountain-slopes 
 
 At morning forth goes he ! 
 
 How pleasant from their pastoral tops 
 
 To watch his herds below; 
 Or see, at mid-day, in the copse 
 
 The oaks he planted grow I 
 
 Now in his garden in the cool 
 
 Of shady flowering trees, 
 He plies an easy gardening tool, 
 
 Or overlooks his bees. 
 
 Or on the first warm day in May 
 
 After a genial spring, 
 He rises at the peep of day 
 
 To view the sheep-shearing. 
 
54 SCENES. 
 
 Or, when the year to harvest comes, 
 He stooks the golden sheaves, 
 
 Or counts his juicy pears and plums 
 And looks in vain for leaves ! 
 
 While these delightful seasons pass, 
 
 He sometimes may be seen 
 Extended on the scented grass 
 
 Beneath a leafy screen. 
 
 Soft sunshine through the branches peeps. 
 
 And fountains fall around, 
 And w^rens and robins sing — he sleeps, 
 
 Yet hears in sleep their sound. 
 
 But Winter comes : the trees are bare. 
 The fields are hard v^^ith frost ; 
 
 And now^, you ask, hov^ does he fare ? 
 — Are all his pleasures lost ? 
 
 See him at early morning, capped 
 
 With fox-fur for the cold, 
 Step forth, v^ell-breakfasted and wrapped, 
 
 A hardy hunter bold ! 
 
 On his left arm the shining steel, 
 
 Upon his back the bag. 
 And sure, but shivering, at his heel. 
 
 Spotty, and Spring, and Shag. 
 
THE COUNTRY LAIRD. 55 
 
 Two red hares in the valley bleed, 
 
 One blue hare on the hill ; 
 But round the marsh, where wild-fowl feed, 
 
 There is a deadly kill! 
 
 Four brace of snipe, a ptarmigan. 
 
 Six brace of duck and teal, 
 And, maybe, a fat Iceland swan 
 
 Fall to the pointed steel. 
 
 As homeward in the early gloom 
 
 A tired man he returns. 
 He sees far off his dining-room, 
 
 The fire within that burns ; 
 
 And, waiting with a welcoming smile, 
 
 His healthy comely wife 
 — F'or an unwedded love's a wile 
 
 To mar the happiest life. 
 
 And now — while bon vivants in town 
 
 Sit o'er their oyster-sauce. 
 Or gulp the fat green turtle down 
 
 Their vitiated hatisse j 
 
 Or French ragout, or fricassee, 
 
 With unclean jaws devour, 
 Drenching th' unhallowed mixture wi* 
 
 A claret cold and sour ; 
 
56 SCENES. 
 
 Or, maybe, in a lodging-house, 
 
 Or modish restaurant. 
 They pick their morsel of a mouse 
 
 While still the doors go bang I 
 
 As black-tailed mutes, bedropt with grease, 
 
 Whisk out, and whirry in, 
 And bring the biscuit and the cheese 
 
 Before you well begin — 
 
 He sits at his own table-head 
 
 In peace, and plenty too. 
 And eats his game to home-baked bread 
 
 And native mountain-dew ! 
 
 One tidy Phyllis, and no more, 
 
 To whom he needs but look, 
 Receives the dishes at the door 
 
 From a sweet-tempered cook ! 
 
 He drinks the Queen, the Omrch ajtd State, 
 
 The landed Interest too ; 
 Then, turning to his smiling mate 
 
 — ''And this, my dear, to you / " 
 
 — Oh, that's the life, as all will own, 
 
 Securest yet from sorrow ; 
 I'll sell my shares, call up my loans, 
 
 And buy a farm to-morrow ! 
 
SCHULE LADDIE'S LAMENT. 57 
 
 He raised his loans — he realised 
 Ten thousand for that end ; 
 
 A fortnight — and he advertised 
 Ten thousand pounds to lend ! 
 
 A KINTRA SCHULE LADDIE'S LAMENT 
 ON THE LATENESS OF THE SEASON. 
 
 {Overheard igth April 1881.) 
 
 The east wind's whistlin' cauld an' shrill, 
 The snaw lies on the Lomont Hill ; 
 It's simmer in the Almanack, 
 But whan 'ill simmer days be back ? 
 
 There's no* a bud on tree or buss. 
 The craws are at a sair nonplus, 
 Hoo can they big ? hoo can they pair 
 Wi' them sae cauld an' wuds sae bare? 
 
 My faither canna saw his seed. 
 The half o' land's to ploo, indeed ; 
 The lambs are deein', an' the yowes 
 Are trachilt wanderin' owre the knowes. 
 
58 SCENES. 
 
 There's no' a swallow back as yet, 
 The robin doesna seek to flit ; 
 There's no' a buckie nor a bud 
 On ony brae in ony wud ! 
 
 It's no' a time for barefit feet 
 Whan it may be on ding o' sleet ; 
 The sizzin's broken a' oor rules — 
 It's no' the time o' year o' bools ; 
 
 It's no' the time o' year o' peeries 
 — /think the year's gane tapsalteeries ! 
 The farmers may be bad, nae doot 
 — It puts us laddies sair aboot ! 
 
 MORNING RAINBOW. 
 
 In glint and gloom the barley swayed, 
 
 The darting swallow sang, 
 And sweetly in the gleaming glade 
 
 The bursting blossoms sprang. 
 As blithesomely I looked along 
 
 Its line of checkered shade, 
 A rainbow o'er the roadway flung 
 
 A bridge of glorious braid! 
 
THE HAWK AND THE LINNETS. 59 
 
 The vision stood before I knew, 
 
 And what was earth but lately 
 (For though it was a charming view 
 
 It did not thrill me greatly) 
 Became transfigured, grew to me 
 
 Heaven's glorious portal straightway ; 
 — Expectant I looked up to see 
 
 An angel in the gateway. 
 
 THE HAWK AND THE TWO LINNETS. 
 
 A HAWK was wheeling in the high hill-air, 
 With systematic curve gleaning the heather. 
 On the fierce outlook for a partridge feather 
 
 Or moor-cock's claw — your hawk loves dainty 
 fare — 
 
 When, just beneath him, rose a loving pair 
 Of linnets, and on social wing together 
 Flew jauntily along — they best knew 
 whither — 
 
 Singing, and of their danger unaware. 
 
 He saw, and, ceasing his aerial tour, 
 
 Hung motionless by the sheer strength of 
 will ; 
 Then, like a stone slung with precision sure 
 
6o SCENES. 
 
 And deadly force, meant not to maim but 
 
 kill, 
 Down came his hawkship, missed, and struck 
 
 the moor ; 
 And those two linnets — they await him still ! 
 
 THE LAST NIGHT ON THE TOWER. 
 
 While to the West the sky is clear. 
 
 Of palest amber hue, 
 Where warmer tints just disappear 
 
 — The East is purely blue ; 
 The blue of which blue-bells are made. 
 
 As soft as air in Spring, 
 With here and there a cloudlet laid 
 
 White as an angel's wing. 
 
 Down in the vale the village sleeps 
 
 Wrapt in a smoky shroud, 
 Save where some cottage firelight peeps 
 
 Half frightened through the cloud. 
 And in the gloom the woody glen 
 
 Seems to contract and close 
 Its sundered sides to meet again, 
 
 Forgetting they were foes. 
 
THE LAST NIGHT ON THE TOWER. 6i 
 
 The rounded outlines of the hills 
 
 Are carven on the sky ; 
 A star into existence thrills 
 
 And trembles there on high. 
 Oh fairer than a diamond bright 
 
 Upon a queenly brow, 
 The first fair jewel of the Night 
 
 Hangs o'er Craiginnan Knowe.^ 
 
 The rushing of the restless streams^ 
 
 Is surging in the air; 
 Far up, among the mountains, gleams 
 
 Each fountain, calm and fair. 
 But ever run the rapid rills 
 
 To seek the Sea's unrest 
 — And we, too, must forsake the hills 
 
 Upon the self-same quest ! 
 
 1 Behind Castle Campbell. 
 
 3 The Care, and the Sorrow — which unite just below 
 the old castle. 
 
PART III.— SATIRES. 
 
 BONES. 
 
 The type is common : there's at least a score 
 That look on life as a rare piece of fun 
 And all its business a burlesque, for one 
 
 That sits and thinks the matter gravely o'er. 
 
 You bear with this — you bear it, and deplore ; 
 But when in private life you cannot shun 
 Nor stop the laughing misery, once begun 
 
 — 'Tis past all bearing, and the man's a bore ! 
 
 He comes, and straight up -curls the labial 
 sheath. 
 Revealing all his dentistry within. 
 
 As if the man were God-made for his teeth 
 And not to show them were the fatal sin ! 
 
 Is there no power above (there's none beneath) 
 To legislate a close time for the grin? 
 
IN SEVEN YEARS. 63 
 
 NIL NISI MENDACIA! 
 
 They laud him in the city : seated here 
 In sober contemplation, God forbid 
 That I should seek to hale what He has hid 
 
 From the dead bosom on that lowly bier. 
 
 — Yet I will dare to speak and be sincere : 
 His life like a smooth-flowing current slid 
 And wound through loamy flats ; dozing, he 
 did 
 
 The easy duty of his narrow sphere. 
 
 — But now they deify him ? — That's the wine 
 The soups and savoury suppers that he gave : 
 
 Yoti may be Divus too, if you incline; 
 
 — Give banquets while you live, and, when you 
 " cave," 
 
 Bkoadnose will snuffle platitudes divine, 
 And GoATLFGS dance devoutly on your grave. 
 
 IN SEVEN YEARS. 
 
 Seven years ago — only seven years ago 
 He sat beside me in the Lecture-room 
 In all the grace of literary bloom, 
 
 And spake of what the next seven years would 
 show. 
 
64 SA TIRES. 
 
 Songs, and an Epic, and a Play — but no ! 
 The Drama was played out : he would assume 
 Some strange new form, all radiance and 
 perfume. 
 And sling his fancies o'er creation so ! 
 — I stumbled on him near a farm to-day, 
 
 Straws in his hair and hog-wash on his 
 sleeves ; 
 Loud was his voice, dew-lapped his throat, and 
 —Hay! 
 Damn you, the stirks are in among the sheaves ! 
 Amused, but startled more, I turned away 
 And left him to his bullocks and his beeves. 
 
 KINGS BY DIVINE RIGHT. 
 
 Not these are kings — not these ! 
 
 Though girt with gold each brow, 
 And courtiers on their supple knees 
 Before them bow ! 
 
 Though couriers at the gate 
 
 Await their sealed commands, 
 To bear the fiat of their fate 
 
 To distant lands ! 
 
KINGS BY DIVINE RIGHT. 65 
 
 Though idle throats bray out 
 
 Their vivats where they pass, 
 And helmets compass them about 
 
 With blaze of brass ! 
 
 Load them with gem and jew'l 
 
 And pearl and purple fine 
 — Not these, not these the kings that rule 
 By right divine ! 
 
 What ! chosen by the dice 
 
 Of fate— the fault of birth, 
 Is he, this vicious rake, the vice 
 Of God on earth ? 
 
 Or tyrants and their tools 
 
 — Does Heaven their crimes ordain ? 
 By sufferance of their fellow-fools 
 The puppets reign ! 
 
 Who, then, are those that reign 
 
 O'er this terraqueous ball 
 From East to West and back again, 
 Owning it all? 
 
 The Potentates of Thought, 
 
 Of Language and of Lay — 
 Milton and Shakespeare, Schiller, Scott. 
 And such as they ! 
 E 
 
66 SA TITLES. 
 
 And of the kingly guild 
 
 Are all who feel the flame 
 Of genius — famed or unfulfilled 
 
 Their dawning fame ! 
 
 Unmarked they come and go, 
 
 Of outward splendour shorn ; 
 Yet kings are they without their show, 
 And princes born ! 
 
 Through woods they wander, and 
 
 On lonely hillsides sit, 
 Too surely conscious of command 
 To blazon it ! 
 
 Yet far as sky is curled 
 
 Or lightnings flash their fire. 
 They are the kings that rule the world 
 By God's desire ! 
 
 And over all the earth 
 
 Their deathless couriers ride — 
 Passion and pathos, scorn and mirth, 
 And love and pride ! 
 
 By these they gently sway. 
 
 Enlighten, charm, and bless ; 
 By these they devastate, and slay. 
 Free and redress ! 
 
CHRISTOPHER SLY. 67 
 
 Sceptre nor sword they need, 
 Nor sense-convincing sign : 
 They are the kings that rule indeed 
 By right divine I 
 
 CHRISTOPHER SLY: HIS POLITICAL 
 SENTIMENTS. 
 
 The Peers ! With what complacency they stand 
 
 On heights englorified with golden fire ! 
 
 Look tip, you tinker ! — look up, and admire, 
 And let your grovelling soul with pride expand I 
 These are the guardians of your native land — 
 
 "And they possess it too !" But that's their 
 hire 
 
 For guarding it : all bravery would expire 
 Unless rewarded with a liberal hand : 
 Their fathers bled for it — " Get out ! you lie ! 
 
 Mine fled for it, he did, at Waterloo ! " 
 And they are long descended — " So am I ; 
 
 My dad came over with the Conqueror too ; 
 And what d'ye do for me ? for Christopher Sly ? 
 
 — Gimme a pot ofale^for Godsake do / ' 
 
PART IV.— PSALMS. 
 
 O Lord, all things are praising Thee always ! 
 
 The mountain's peaceful power; the restless 
 sea 
 
 With all its surging music, fiercely free ; 
 The busy rill that stone nor stumbling stays ; 
 The fairy blue-bells swinging on the braes 
 
 In their ethereal beauty born of Thee : 
 
 And with distinctest voice of all does he. 
 My own beloved, utter forth Thy praise ! 
 But I, who worship Thee from day to day 
 
 In silence inarticulate, and seek 
 Passionately to praise Thee, and who pray 
 
 With feeling strong but thought and utter 
 ance weak, 
 Am dumb as are the pebbles of the way — 
 
 Or as an infant, trying first to speak. 
 
SONG OF THE BLADES OF GRASS, 69 
 
 SONG OF THE BLADES OF GRASS. 
 
 Humble we are and lowly, 
 
 Made to be trodden on ; 
 Once we had hope, but slowly, 
 
 Softly that hope has gone ; 
 Yet we despair not wholly — 
 
 On us a star has shone ! 
 
 When we first woke from sleeping, 
 Rose from our earth-bed warm, 
 
 Kindly the light came peeping 
 Under the tall bent's arm, 
 
 And the blue sky seemed keeping 
 All on the earth from harm. 
 
 But " Here is nought abiding" 
 Mournful long grasses say, 
 
 Shaking their heads, and hiding 
 From us the light of day. 
 
 E'en in the sunshine chiding 
 If we are glad and gay. 
 
 Strange are the things they tell us— 
 How can the mighty powers 
 
 Ruling the sky be jealous 
 Of such a joy as ours ? 
 
 Sending forth storms to quell us, 
 Darkness, and driving showers. 
 
70 PSALMS. 
 
 And when the sky is dreary, 
 When from the mists the sun 
 
 Staggers out wan and weary 
 As if his strength were done, 
 
 Cry they ** 'Tis this we fear aye ! 
 This is our doom begun !" 
 
 We are so young beside them 
 Withered and old and grey, 
 
 We never dare to chide them, 
 No matter what they say ; 
 
 They would have ill betide them. 
 We would have good alway. 
 
 Surely the skies have heard them 
 Murmur in midst of bliss, 
 
 And to their wish preferred them- 
 To a grey gloom like this — 
 
 As in a grave interred them 
 Safe from the sunlight's kiss. 
 
 Boisterous winds are brawling 
 
 Over the patient hill ; 
 Something upon us falling 
 
 Heavy and damp and chill 
 Seems to be ever calling 
 
 "Down, little blades, lie still !" 
 
SONG OF THE BLADES OF GRASS. 71 
 
 Summer, so long expected, 
 
 Welcome however late ! 
 Come to our hearts dejected, 
 
 Smile on our dismal fate. 
 Leave us no more neglected 
 
 — It is so hard to wait ! 
 
 " Patience !" they answer kindly, 
 Shadow and shower and breeze — 
 
 " Rest in the gloom resign'dly, 
 Taking what Heaven may please : 
 
 Trust, little children, blindly : 
 None of us farther sees." 
 
 Yet there was, one morn, lightly 
 
 Hung in our midst, a star ! 
 Glittering and beckoning brightly 
 
 In the high blue afar 
 — Once we saw many nightly, 
 
 Now know not where they are ! 
 
 Some of our hopes are blighted — 
 
 Hopes of a summer gone ; 
 Hopes to be no more slighted 
 
 Trampled, and trodden on : 
 Yet are we not benighted 
 
 —On us a star has shone ! 
 
72 PSALMS. 
 
 DISTRUST. 
 
 To-day my future seemed too golden clear. 
 
 It cannot be, I said, it cannot be ; 
 
 God never meant such happiness for me- 
 lt is not good to have such pleasure here. 
 Thus medicining my cup of joy with fear 
 
 I sought my window, hoping half to see 
 
 The smiling heaven o'erclouded ominously — 
 And scared a bird, who thought I came too near. 
 Ungrateful bird ! It was my hand that spread 
 
 That feast of crumbs for thee, and fleest thou 
 thus? 
 Canst thou not trust the hand that gives thee 
 bread ? 
 
 Why then so doubtful and so timorous? 
 — Lord, do we grieve Thee likewise with our 
 dread, 
 
 Distrusting all Thy gracious gifts to us? 
 
 THE COMMON CREED. 
 
 Lord, with blind eyes we look, and fear ; 
 
 We listen with deaf ears, and start ; 
 We think Thou mayst be very near 
 
 — But oh ! Thou ever silent art ! 
 
rilE COMMON CREED. 73 
 
 And we that would obey Thy will, 
 For Thou, we feel, art wise and good, 
 
 Search for it in our hearts ; but still, 
 O Lord, it is misunderstood ! 
 
 We follow where our passions lead, 
 
 Deeming them lights that lead to Thee ; 
 
 And when it is Thy light, indeed, 
 We think it false, and from it flee ! 
 
 The soul ignores the human part, 
 The human part denies the soul ; 
 
 To this we lean, from that we start, 
 And back again to that we roll ! 
 
 We weep in hope, we weep in fear, 
 Through life's long idly striving day ; 
 
 And what our hands collect and rear, 
 Our hearts destroy, and cast away ! 
 
 There is no rock on which to rest 
 
 And raise the fabric of a lite ! 
 Time with its changes tries the best, 
 
 Long ere oblivion ends the strife ! 
 
 Yet Thou that mad*st the human heart 
 A home of vexing hopes and fears, 
 
 — Our Father, not on earth that art, 
 Wilt surely one day dry our tears I 
 
74 PSALMS. 
 
 IN THE CHURCHYARD AT 
 CHRISTIANIA. 
 
 Death has no province in the Northern Land, 
 
 To fetter, terrorise with threats, and slay ; 
 
 But when he comes (and that late in the day) 
 He comes, as an official with his wand, 
 Wearing a bosom-flower and smiling bland, 
 
 To lead the spirit to its rest away. 
 
 Few tears, or none, are shed — not more than 
 may 
 Grace a departure to some distant strand. 
 They lay the body where they can re-view 
 
 Daily its resting-place : no yew-trees wave 
 Funereal plumes around of faithless hue, 
 
 A sieve for all the sorrowing winds that rave. 
 But lightsome blossoms blend their white and 
 blue 
 
 To make a pleasure-garden of the grave. 
 
 AN EVENING HOUR IN ORWELL 
 ACRE. 
 
 Here, in the churchyard by the lake. 
 One vigil hour I'll gladly wake. 
 Where Orwell's buried thousands sleep 
 In social slumber, calm and deep. 
 
ORWELL ACRE. 75 
 
 Here, while the glooms of evening spread, 
 I'll sit among the slumbering dead 
 — No melancholy misanthrope, 
 Bankrupt of health and heart and hope ; 
 But full of life, and like to live, 
 Thankful for joys this earth can give, 
 A young man drawing cheerful breath, 
 And yet — no enemy to Death ! 
 
 I would not have a shortened day ; 
 And neither would I live alway. 
 But, since the end I may not know 
 Of why I live or where I go. 
 With calm obedience I would wait 
 The pleasure of omniscient Fate. 
 
 Tis pleasant in the sun to live ; 
 And Night has her own joys to give. 
 Our very sorrows and our cares 
 — The pain they bring us is not theirs ; 
 Time passes and the pain has oozed, 
 And now they seem like joys misused. 
 
 In calm Eternity's wide view 
 Little should vex or me or you. 
 Even Death, which each must undergo, 
 Whether he bows to it or no, 
 
76 PSALMS. 
 
 — Tis far too common to be sent 
 Upon us for a punishment. 
 And I would rather make a friend 
 And talk of him before the end 
 Familiarly — keeping the faith 
 Of all our family with Death. 
 
 As thus : I have a canker-care ; 
 It haunts me here, it hounds me there ; 
 But Thou wilt heal (if none before), 
 And it will trouble me no more. 
 
 A rival ; and he hates me hard. 
 The harder for my friends' regard ; 
 Drowning — he would not help me, no ! 
 Yet drowned — and he would weep, I know. 
 
 We are but boys — fall out and fight, 
 And cry, and make it up at night. 
 When Thoti wilt stroke us on the head 
 And put us sobbing both to bed. 
 
 How calmly by the mimic deep 
 The buried crowds of Orwell sleep, 
 Careless of all that once was dear. 
 And past the sway of hope and fear ! 
 How enviably long and deep 
 The buried cares of Orwell sleep ! 
 
ORWELL ACRE. 77 
 
 Night occupies Benarty hill, 
 
 The last belated bird is still, 
 
 A far-off cottage light goes out, 
 
 And darkness gropes the world about ! 
 
 Save now and then amid the sigh 
 
 Of sedges, or the pinewood nigh, 
 
 A cushat's low domestic moan, 
 
 The worlds of Life and Death are lone ; 
 
 Farmhouse and churchyard, lake and hill, 
 
 Alike mysteriously still ! 
 
 Not stiller in the chancel light 
 
 Lies the effigies of a knight 
 
 Upon the lid of marble stone 
 
 He lifts his mailed hands upon 
 
 — His child-meek hands, no more to feel 
 
 The pulse of war, the strength of steel — 
 
 Than I, upon this green grave-bed, 
 
 Rapt into concord with the dead ! 
 
 I feel, as at the door of death, 
 My spirit drawing curious breath ! 
 
 Methinks, though life to me is dear, 
 'Twere little to die now and here — 
 To lay upon this turf my head 
 As on the pillow of a bed. 
 
78 PSALMS, 
 
 With this to deepen the delight 
 That I should have no fears to-night, 
 And only this to give me pain 
 That one might call on me in vain. 
 
 SONG OF THE CLOVER BLOSSOM. 
 
 Within a soft and verdant bed 
 
 Of clover leaves I lie, 
 While drives the tall grass overhead 
 
 Athwart a cloudy sky. 
 The wind, that rocks it to and fro 
 
 In agony of pain, 
 Is whispering soft to me below 
 
 Of pleasant things, and plain. 
 
 The long stems, in their anguish, twist 
 
 And bend as low as I ; 
 Yet see they but the clammy mist 
 
 That makes the fair light die. 
 Oh, I am poor and small, I know, 
 
 And cannot see so far ; 
 I only give my scent to blow 
 
 Where no sweet odours are. 
 
SABBATH ON THE HILLS. 79 
 
 I only gaze up timidly 
 
 And wish the light were there, 
 With no strong cry of agony 
 
 — No heaven-constraining prayer. 
 I take the sorrow to my heart 
 
 Unshrinkingly and dumb, 
 And wait till darkness shall depart 
 
 And sunlight's glory come. 
 
 SABBATH ON THE HILLS. 
 
 O Lord our God, we praise Thee on the height ! 
 Here in Thy smiling sunshine would we fling 
 Earth's mantle from our souls, ajid let them 
 spring 
 Soaring to Thee, the Father of all light ! 
 From these Thy holy hills their sunward flight 
 Nor toilsome were, nor tedious'; on the wing 
 Of this pure air upborne, still should they 
 sing, 
 Drawn, praising Thee, from earth to the In- 
 finite. 
 — There are no larks to bless this solitude. 
 Silent it lies and looks on the blue sky 
 
8o PSALMS. 
 
 Like some great giant, softened and subdued 
 By the mild lustre of a loving eye ; 
 
 Yet, though by angels' song Thine ear is wooed, 
 Thou hearest, Lord, the linnet's feeble cry ! 
 
 A RAILWAY ACCIDENT. 
 
 For ever in my memory fast 
 I see thee as I saw thee last. 
 
 — What demon tempts me thus to look 
 
 Upon the page of Memor^^'s book, 
 
 Where, blurred with blood, with anguish wet. 
 
 The annals of that hour are set ? 
 
 — Heaven from mine eyes in mercy keep 
 
 That spectacle that murders sleep ! 
 
 Surely the pitying angels wept 
 
 That should have compassed round and kept 
 
 This gentle life that did no harm. 
 
 And was of mine the darling charm ! 
 
 The cruel tragedy is past, 
 
 And thou — for ever safe at last ! 
 
A RAILWAY ACCIDENT. 8i 
 
 They shut the door, and locked thee in ; 
 Good-bye, we said, amid the din 
 Of bells, and wheels, and gasps that burst 
 From that black engine's heart accurst ! 
 
 Good-bye thou saidst — and in my ear 
 The parting tone yet lingers dear — 
 While on thy lips there sat the while 
 A tender, tearful, timorous smile 
 — As if thou wouldst not seem to part 
 With boding sorrow in thy heart. 
 
 Even now, while sorrowing here I stand, 
 
 I feel the tremor of thy hand : 
 
 Was it love's tenderness ? or fear 
 
 — A consciousness that Fate was near ? 
 
 Or jar of nerve from shriek and rasp ? 
 
 — It was at least our final clasp ! 
 
 The guard's shrill whistle brought the close, 
 White steam-balls from the funnel rose ; 
 Good-byes repeated, friends drew back; 
 The engine moved along the track, 
 Strong and insensate through the gloom, 
 Deliberately to its doom ! 
 
 As down the platform passed the train, 
 I saw thee, Seraph ! once again : 
 
 F 
 
82 PSALMS. 
 
 The light shone full on eyes and brow 
 — I saw thee as I see thee now ! 
 
 loveliest picture Earth could claim 
 Set in a carriage window frame ! 
 What radiant beauty from thy face 
 Lit up the darkness of the place ! 
 
 It seemed the halo of a saint, 
 
 But brighter than the Masters paint, 
 
 A glory finer than the sun 
 
 — The aureole of Heaven begun ! 
 
 A moment seen ! 
 
 I thank thee, Heaven ! 
 For the clear glimpse that then was given- 
 It tarried with me from that day, 
 It tarries with me now alway ! 
 
 It was as if an angel bowed 
 Earthward from a dark thunder-cloud. 
 Then gently, smilingly withdrew 
 While yet you gazed and ere you knew. 
 
 1 charge thee, Memory, hold them fast, 
 Those features as I saw them last, — 
 Brave eyes, sweet lips, with just a trace 
 Of transient sadness on the face. 
 Saintly serenity of brow 
 
 — How poor is Earth without them now ! 
 
CLOUDS. 83 
 
 Thou bless5d Angel ! where thou art 
 Is all my hope, is all my heart ; 
 And Heaven scarce nearer now can be 
 Since thou art there to plead for me ! 
 
 CLOUDS. 
 
 Through all the day, in sunshine and in cloud, 
 My heart was weighted with prophetic woe — 
 " Thus," in the cloud, I dreamt, " will grief 
 o'erflow 
 My smiling plains of joy, and care-weeds crowd 
 My sunny gardens, by young love endowed :" 
 And in the sunshine, " This will shortly go ; 
 Let me not trust therein ; too well I know 
 
 To none is constant happiness allowed." 
 
 — Whence come these roseate shores that wide 
 outroll ? 
 Those ebon rocks and flowery islets far 
 Make with that amber sea a perfect whole. 
 To love, all things add beauty ; nought can 
 mar. — 
 The sunset sweeps misgivings off my soul. 
 And peace drops from the wings of the first 
 star. 
 
84 PSALMS. 
 
 HYMN FOR THE NEW YEAR. 
 
 O Lord, Thy creatures cry to Thee 
 
 For love, and light, and guidance still ! 
 Their highest hope Thy face to see, 
 
 Their utmost aim to do Thy will. 
 Thou wouldst not have us vainly grieve 
 
 For faults and follies past and gone? 
 Be ours the bitterness to leave 
 
 And bear the fuller knowledge on. 
 
 From out the ashes of the Old 
 
 The phoenix of the New Year springs 
 With possibilities untold 
 
 In the proud freedom of its wings. 
 High may it soar with us, until 
 
 On heights of holiness it dies, 
 That other years may higher still 
 
 On young unwearied pinions rise! 
 
 We drift upon an unknown sea. 
 
 On waves that ever nearer draw 
 The borders of eternity. 
 
 Obedient to unchanging law. 
 And through the night we shrink to hear 
 
 On that dim shore their dying fall ; 
 Till comes the thought to calm our fear, 
 
 That Thou, O Lord, art over all ! 
 
TO A FRIEND. 85 
 
 TO A FRIEND. 
 
 Thy work may not be measured ; scales and 
 rule 
 Are for the tangible and transient — thou 
 With pain of heart and sweat of brain and 
 brow 
 Pliest thy work with no material tool. 
 Therefore heed not the rating of the fool, 
 Whose blindness to the light would not 
 
 allow 
 The glory of the sun that's shining now, 
 If within walls he circumscribe thy school. 
 
 But count thy work in every life that springs 
 Attestive to thy teaching, wheresoe'er 
 
 On earth it suffers — or in heaven it sings, 
 Owning in part its portion to thy care ; 
 
 And think that round thee maybe angel-wings 
 As there are hearts, blessing thee unaware ! 
 
PART V. 
 
 HORACE IN HOMESPUN : 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE FRIENDS AND FORTUNES OF HUGHIE 
 
 HALIBURTON, 
 
 A SHEPHERD OF THE OCHILS. 
 
 Hughie's advice to his frien^ Dauvit to 
 enjoy the fine weather. 
 
 Gratia cum NympJiis geminisque sororihis aiidet 
 Ducere nnda choros. — Car. IV. 7. 
 
 An' noo ance mair the Lomon' 
 Has donn'd his mantle green, 
 
 An' we may gang a-roamin' 
 Thro' the fields at e'en ; 
 
 An' listen to the rustlin' 
 O' green leaves i' the shaw, 
 
 An' hear the blackbird whistlin' 
 Winter weel awa. 
 
II UGH IE IIALIBURTON. &7 
 
 Sae mild's the weather, Dauvit, 
 That was but late sae bauld, 
 
 We gang withoot a grauvit, 
 Careless o' the caukl. 
 
 An' juist the tither nicht, man, 
 Twa barefit Mays were seen 
 
 — It maun hae been a sicht, man ! 
 Dancin* on the green. 
 
 It sets a body thinkin' 
 
 Hoo quick the moments fly, 
 
 Hog fast the days gang linkin — 
 Spring *11 sune be by ; 
 
 Then Simmer wi' the roses ; 
 
 Then Autumn wi' the grain ; 
 Then Winter comes, and closes 
 
 A'thing ance again ! 
 
 An' yet, tho* short her range is, 
 Dame Nature's never dune ; 
 
 She juist repeats the changes 
 — Juist renews the tune. 
 
 The auld mune to her ruin 
 Gangs rowin' doon the sky, 
 
 When, swith ! a braw bran-new ane 
 Cocks her horn on high ! 
 
HORACE IN HOMESPUN. 
 
 Alas ! when oor short mornin* 
 Slides doon the slopes o' Nicht, 
 
 There's nouthir tide nor turnin' 
 Back to life an' licht ! 
 
 We fa' as fell oor faith ers 
 
 Into the narra hame, 
 An' fowg forgetfu' gaithers 
 
 Owre oor verra name ! 
 
 — But what needs a' this grievin' 
 For griefs we dinna feel ? 
 
 Let's leeve as lang's we're leevin', 
 Lauch as lang's we're weel. 
 
 An' if it's guid i' gloamin' 
 It's better sune than syne 
 
 To rise an' gang a-roamin' 
 Noo the weather's fine ! 
 
 HUGHIE REMONSTRATES WITH DaVIE,- 
 A DOUR CRITIC. 
 
 — Si me lyricis vatibtis iiiseres I — Car. I. i. 
 
 Man, Davie ! had I but the ert 
 
 To pierce that whunstane o' your hert 
 
 Wi' the clear dart o' poesee 
 
 — A prooder man there wadna be ! 
 
HUG HIE HALIBURTON. 89 
 
 For weel it's kent thro' a' the toun 
 
 That nane can rise that ye ca' doun ; 
 
 While him that by the haun' ye tak 
 
 — He'll nouthir fame nor fortune lack : 
 
 His ballants — thro' the touns they'll cry them, 
 
 An' lads an' lasses rin to buy them ! 
 
 There's twa-three praise me, tae, it's true ; 
 But what are they when wantin' you ? 
 — 'Od, Davie ! but it's hard to tell, 
 Ye'll maybe praise me yet yersel ! 
 
 There's Johnnie o' the Windyknowe 
 — My blessin' on his auld beld pow ! 
 Wi' kindly wird, whene'er he meets me, 
 He grips me by the haun' and greets me — 
 "Shackspere!" says Johnnie; "gie'saswatcli o't I 
 Weel dune, ma bairn ! Ye have the catch o't ! 
 That dings the rest ! " — but that's nae test, 
 For aye wi' him the last's the best. 
 
 There's Geordie, tae, my second coushin, 
 — His praise is waur to me than poushin ! 
 He kens a stirk, but for a sang — 
 He's never richt but when he's wrang ! 
 
 There's a fyou mair 'at I could name,— 
 There's Tam the coo doctor, an* Jame; 
 
90 HORACE IN HOMESPUN. 
 
 But Jame's my brither, an' for Tarn 
 — Ye'll buy his judgment wi' a dram ! 
 
 Man, Davie ! if ye would but praise me, 
 Ye would, as wi' a winlass, raise me 
 Oot o' the Slough o' Doot I'm in, 
 An' set me on a road to rin ! 
 
 Just cast yer een abroad an' see 
 
 Hoo everybody's pleased but me — 
 
 They've a' some hobby to amuse them, 
 
 Folk to look on, an' frien's to roose them, 
 
 An' weel contentit there they ride 
 
 An' lauch, an' let the warl' slide ! 
 
 — An' I an' a' would hae my treasure. 
 
 An' poetry would be my pleasure. 
 
 If ye would only bend your ee 
 
 An' look approval ance on me ! 
 
 To be a bandsman pleases some, 
 —To toot the horn or beat the drum. 
 
 E'en little Jock, that wirks a mangle, 
 — Saturday comes, an' the triangle, 
 An' then sae manfu' as he strides 
 An tingles on its iron sides ! 
 
 An* weel ye ken that Pate Macdougal 
 Would blaw his sowl into a bugle ! 
 
IIUGHIE HALIBURTON. 91 
 
 ' — That thrice thro' jealousy the wife 
 O' Dempster poppit Dempster's fife ! 
 An' weel-a-wat the coonty kens 
 When Sandy Brand ca'd oot the brains 
 O' his ain fiddle at the fair, 
 An' swuir he ne'er would fiddle mair 
 — Altho' he dang'd if he was carin', 
 Sober he sabbit like a bairn ! 
 
 Ithers again for days are chammber'd 
 Wi' hawks' een glowrin' owre a dambuird. 
 
 Some at the gowflin' spend their leisure : 
 To some the rifle-range gies pleasure. 
 
 Great was the day when Dang-your-eyvs 
 Brocht doun fra Wimbledon a prize ! 
 We rang the steeple wi' a din 
 That brocht three mile o' the kintra in, 
 Then at the cross we form'd oor ranks 
 An' gave oor conquerin' hero thanks ; 
 We lifted up oor voice on high 
 An' shouted till we a' were dry. 
 Then rows an* ale were served aboot 
 Till ane — fra hine awa — cried oot,— 
 " This tumbler-slockenin* winna dct\ 
 There's naething for't but the Brooree ! " ' 
 —We broke the door, pour'd in haill-saU-. 
 An* a' gat fou on barmy ale ! 
 
 * Brewery. 
 
92 HORACE IN HOMESPUN. 
 
 Quoits an' the puttin' stane hae charms 
 For steady een an' sturdy arms. 
 Oh then to see oor noble smith 
 Tak' up the ball to pruve his pith ! 
 Hark hoo it whizzes thro' the air 
 — He's foremost by a yaird an' mair ! 
 
 The slater, tae, ye daurna slicht : 
 He drave the pin clean oot o' sicht, 
 An', when wi' shools they howkit for't, 
 Darkness cam' on, an' spoil'd the sport : 
 — Nane to this day can understand it, 
 They howkit but they never fand it ! 
 
 For me, — gin I had but the ert 
 
 To pierce that whunstane o' your hert 
 
 Or bring- a sparkle to your ee 
 
 — A prooder man there wouldna be ! 
 
 Noo, Davie ! dinna crook your mou ! 
 
 A wird o' praise is sweet fra you ! 
 
 HUGHIE DRIVEN IN BY A TEMPEST: He 
 
 DEFIES THE ELEMENTS FROM BEHIND A 
 
 JORUM. 
 
 — Raptaimts, ainici, 
 Occasionejn de die., dumque virent genua. — Epod. 13. 
 
 An angry tempest, roarin' lood, 
 Is broken lowse, an' ragin' free ; 
 
HUG HIE HALIBURTON. 93 
 
 The knock-vvud groans wi' anguish boo'd, 
 An' rocks an' writhes the moanin' sea. 
 See whaur in whirlin' shooers they flee 
 
 The sprays o' ocean owre the main ! 
 See whaur the leaves o' buss an' tree 
 
 Gang streamin' streamin' owre the plain ! 
 
 Let's tak' occasion frae the day 
 
 To triumph owre a thrawart fate, 
 An' ere auld age forbid we may, 
 
 Assert oor independent state. 
 
 The win's, that at the window beat, 
 May tame the tod, an' cowe the craw ; 
 
 But we, wha rank a higher rate, 
 Will lauch at Winter's wildest law ! 
 
 Bring oot the jorum — there's a drap 
 That should be gurglin' i* the wime o't ! 
 
 An', while the storm flees owre oor tap, 
 We'll toom the cog, an' hae a time o't \ 
 A cheerfu' quaich — an' whaur's the crime 
 o't? 
 
 Or aiblins twa — we'll no get fou ! 
 — *0d ! Rabbie Burns wad mak' a rhyme 
 o't 
 
 (]in he were here an' saw's the noo ! 
 
94 HORACE IN HOMESPUN. 
 
 HuGHIE'S adventure with a lion ; WITH 
 A SPECIMEN OF HuGHIE's INDUCTIVE 
 REASONING. 
 
 Integei" vitce scelerisqiie p7crtis. — Car, i, 22. 
 
 An upricht dounricht man like me, 
 Whatever chance may happen 
 
 In wud or wild, by laund or sea, 
 Needs nouthir shield nor wappin ! 
 
 His lot may be to travel far 
 Owre oceans wide an' wind}', 
 
 Encounter cannibals, or daur 
 The fechtin tribes o' Indy! 
 
 But if he's beltit roun' aboot 
 
 Wi' a pure recollection, 
 He'll fin' — as lately I fan' oot — 
 
 He's in the Lord's protection. 
 
 — For but yestreen, as it befel, 
 
 An' I was i' the plantin', 
 An' juist was sayin' to mysel 
 
 That Tibbie was enchantin' ; 
 
 A lion, that had broken loose 
 
 Fra Wombwell's cam' to try me ! 
 
HUGIIIE HALIBURTON. 95 
 
 — Though it could 'a torn me like a moose, 
 It girn'd, and juist gaed by me ! 
 
 Put me amang the Sooth Sea Isles 
 
 Wi' cannibals an' cowries, 
 Or i' the laund o* crocodiles, 
 
 Or e'en amang the Mowries, — 
 
 Put me in Africa sae bare, 
 
 Wi' roarin' lions frequentit, 
 — I'm safe ; an' if my Tibbie's there, 
 
 I'm happy an' contentit ! 
 
 Thk dog-days : Hughie's excuse for a 
 
 DRAM. 
 Adduxere sitivt tentpora, Virs;ilil — Car. IV. 12. 
 
 An' noo the Dog-days an' their ills 
 Come on us frae the Sooth ; 
 
 An' we that live amang the hills 
 Are a' burnt up wi' drooth. 
 
 The kye are stan'in' i* the linns 
 
 Or tiggin' owre the braes. 
 An' oor wee laddie-herd — he rins 
 
 Skeer naked, wantin* claes ! 
 
96 HORACE IN HOMESPUN. 
 
 Cule caller veesions o' the sea, 
 
 They flit across my brain 
 Wi' clean white sails an' wun's sae free 
 
 An' ocean's plouterin' train ! 
 
 An' no' ae minute wad I stey 
 Could I win owre the door 
 
 — It's oh that weary length o' wey 
 Atween me an' the shore ! 
 
 But you that are beside the sea 
 An' fresh o' wind an' limb 
 
 — Your frien' wha canna come to ye 
 — Can ye no' come to him ? 
 
 Lay by your oars, an' leave your care 
 
 Till a* this heat be by, 
 An' come an* see hoo we folk fare 
 
 That live by sheep an' kye ! 
 
 I'll gie ye house-room an' a cooch. 
 My crack an' company tae ; 
 
 But bring a lemon i' your pouch 
 — It's usefu' aye to hae I 
 
 Thae sweet forgaithers are nae crime 
 An' dinna come sae aften : 
 
 — It's pleasant at the proper time 
 To spend an hoor in daffin ! 
 
HUGHIE HALIBURTON, 97 
 
 HUGHIE HAS A RIPPET WITH TiBBIE. 
 
 Felices ter et ampiius, 
 . Quos irrupta tenet copula ! — Car. I. 13. 
 
 When you, ye jaud, — for say't I maun, 
 An' little lats that I should ban — 
 Blink sweetly on anither man 
 
 Whaur I can see, 
 Settin* yersel — as weel ye can — 
 
 To anger me ! 
 
 Then first my hert grows to a lump, 
 Then bang it goes wi' sic a thump 
 As nearhan' ca's the vital pump 
 
 Clean aff the hooks, 
 An' a' my bluid at ae big jump 
 
 Flees to my chooks ! 
 
 At ither times when i' the street 
 I hear frae a' the rakes I meet 
 Yer capers quoted, I could greet 
 
 Wi' grief an' anger, 
 An' curse yer face, an' voo to see't 
 
 Again nae langer ! 
 
 Thae bursts o' passion canna bode 
 A future sanctileed o' G6d ! 
 
 G 
 
HORACE IN HOMESPUN. 
 
 Juist cast your een alang the road 
 
 An' see't yersel ! 
 Fechtin' an' flytin' — i' the Lod, 
 
 It's waur nor. hell ! 
 
 O three times happy are the pair 
 Whase bands o' luve, tho' licht as air, 
 Nouthir the will o' man can tear, 
 
 Nor will o' woman, 
 But still they strengthen mair and mair, 
 
 Divinely human ! 
 
 HUGHIE EXPOSTULATES WITH MaRGET IN 
 BEHALF O' HIS NEEBOR JOCK. 
 
 Lydia, d/c.—CAR. I. 8. 
 
 Marget, my lass, what's this I hear? 
 
 — Jock has been noticed sittin' 
 Nicht after nicht sin' last New Year 
 
 A* waesome an' begritten. 
 Nae mair ahint the bothy door 
 
 Is heard his lood guffaw — 
 An' weel I wat it was a roar ! 
 
 — This winna dae ava ! 
 
HUGIIIE HALIBURTON, 99 
 
 They tell me noo he's never seen 
 
 At herd or horseman stormin', 
 Puttin' the stane upon the green, 
 
 Or fechtin' wi' the foreman. 
 Nae langer for the Birnam Games 
 
 He minds to practeese vaultin' ; 
 An' a' the kintra grum'lin' blames 
 
 Yoursel for his defaultin' ! 
 
 When a' the Volunteers were sent 
 
 To face the Queen at Embro', 
 Puir Jock got mony a sair comment 
 
 Upon his want o' mem'ry. 
 For when 'twas " Shoulder arms ! " they said, 
 
 He thocht on Meg's, an' sabbit ; 
 An' a' the time he hung his head, 
 
 For that had grown a habit. 
 
 It gars a body grue to see 
 
 A chiel* sae dowf an* doitet — 
 It never was the wye wi' me 
 
 To fleech when lassie flyted. 
 An' weel ye ken that I'm content 
 
 To see ye blithe an' bonnie ; 
 But o' the puir chap's wuts tak' tent. 
 
 For, faith I he hasna monv. 
 
HORACE IN HOMESPUN. 
 
 HUGHIE NEARLY KILLED BY THE FALL OF A 
 TREE : HIS REFLECTIONS THEREUPON. 
 
 Qttani pieneftirvcE regna ProserpitKz I — Car. II. 13. 
 
 Vow ! Wasna that an awfu' crash ? 
 — Wha plantit ye, ill-deedie ash ? 
 As weel doun haudden may he lie 
 As nearhan' by your fa' was I ! 
 Nane but an ill-designit cratur' 
 Cud set a tree o' sic a natur' ! 
 
 He maun hae been an ill-set loon, 
 
 A terror to his native toun. 
 
 The constable micht wuss to see him — 
 
 Nane else, I'm sure : — I wadna free him 
 
 Frae takin' afif some simple body 
 
 By pittin' pushion in his toddy ! 
 
 My conscience ! But a mawment syne 
 My breath ye a' but garr'd me tyne. 
 Ye senseless log, wi' force sae fell, 
 Ye nearhan' had me like yoursel ! 
 Ye nearhan' got yoursel a name ! 
 — I'll gie ye't yet though, a' the same ! 
 
 Eh ! I was near awa' the noo 
 Whaur bonnie hazel never grew, 
 
HUG HIE HALIBURTON. lo 
 
 Nor ruddy rowans efter rain * 
 
 Glowed like weet coral doun the den — 
 A land o' ghaists an' shadows grim, 
 A' wersh, an' colourless, an' dim ! 
 
 The waesome strains I micht hae heard 
 O* mony a lang-forgotten bard ; 
 They'll wander there fu' dreigh an' dreary, 
 I'se warrant, wi' their wails sae weary. 
 An' (may their shades the doot forgie me !) 
 They michtna hae been gled to see me ! 
 
 For I wad raither lauch nor greet ; 
 
 I canna dae wi' waughts o' weet. 
 
 To be a ghaist wad irk me sair 
 
 — A mournfu' ane I couldna bear. 
 
 But, guid be praised ! I'm no' awa' wi't; 
 
 It hasna been my fate to fa' wi't ! 
 
 Hughie's winter excuse for a dram. 
 
 Dcprome quadrimum Saiina.—CAK. I. 9. 
 
 Fra whaur ye hing, my cauldrife frien', 
 Yer blue neb owre the lowe, 
 
 A snawy nicht-cap may be seen 
 Upon Benarty's pow. 
 
02 HORACE IN HOMESPUN. 
 
 An' snawf upon the auld gean stump 
 
 Whase frostit branches hang 
 Oot-owre the dyke aboon the pump 
 
 That's gane clean aff the fang. 
 The pump that half the toun's folk ser'd, 
 
 It winna gie a jaw ; 
 An' rouch, I ken, shall be your beard 
 
 Until there comes a thaw. 
 
 Come, reenge the ribs, an' let the heat 
 
 Doun to oor tinglin' taes; 
 Clap on a gude Kinaskit peat 
 
 An' let us see a blaze. 
 An', since o' watter we are scant, 
 
 Fesh ben the barley-bree — 
 A nebfu' baith we sanna want 
 
 To weet oor whistles wi'. 
 Noo let the winds o' winter blaw 
 
 Owre Scotland's hills an' plains. 
 It maitters nocht to us ava 
 
 — We've simmer in oor veins ! 
 
 The pooers o' Nature, wind an' snaw. 
 
 Are far aboon oor fit, 
 But, while we scoog them, let them blaw ; 
 
 We'll aye hae simmer yet ! 
 An' sae wi' Fortune's blasts, my frien', — 
 
 They'll come an' bide at will, 
 
HUGHIE HALIBURTON. 103 
 
 But we can scoog ahint a screen 
 
 An' jouk their fury still. 
 Then happy ilka day that comes. 
 
 An' glorious ilka nicht ; 
 The present doesna fash oor thumbs, 
 
 The future needna fricht ! 
 
 Hughie's views on war. 
 
 Nos prccUa virginunt 
 Sectis injiiveiies unguibus acrium 
 Caiitatiius. — Car. 1.6. 
 
 War's broken oot, an' the toon's wives are 
 
 skirlin*, 
 An' Jock maun awa' to the muster at Stirlin'. 
 
 A douce lad, Jock, when he liv'd wi's here, 
 Stappin* about in his pleuchman's gear, 
 Or whustlin* blithe on his native braes 
 — But a deevil to fecht in his scarlet claes! 
 
 Nae doot he's braw wi* his sabretache, 
 An' gluves, an* a swurd, an' a svvirlin' mustache. 
 An' a wee roun' caip on the side o' his pow. 
 An* his elbows squar'd, an' the drum's row-dow 
 
I04 HORACE IN HOMESPUN. 
 
 In the swing o' his gang — 'Od, a strappin' 
 
 chiel ! 
 Wi' a bricht steel spur like a star at his heel. 
 
 But I'm no' at hame in the haunts o' weir, 
 Wi' its gibbles strange an' its gibberish queer ; 
 Wi' its limber here, and its aitch-along there, 
 Its parks and parades — an' kens what mair ! 
 
 I'd like verra weel to descrive it a* 
 For the sake o' Jock — for he looks sae braw ; 
 But I micht gang wrang in a wird or a phrase, 
 An' earn Jock's wrath for the rest o' my days. 
 
 The soger-boys are a sicht to see, 
 But their style o' fechtin's no' for me — 
 Wi' their blawin' ye up, an' their ca'in' ye roun'. 
 An' their stickin' ye dead when they get ye 
 doun ! 
 
 The only fechtin' /care aboot 
 Is when a Meg wi' her jo fa's oot : 
 She lowses upon him a tinkler jaw 
 An' rugs his hair; an' he bears it a' 
 — An' it's a' made up in an hoor or twa ! 
 
HUG HIE HALIBURTON. 105 
 
 Hughie's astonishment on hearing that 
 HIS youthfu' frien* Wull, a quate 
 
 STUDENT LAD, HAS RUN OFF TO THE 
 SOGERS. 
 
 Cum til coemptos undigiie nobiles 
 Libros Panceti, Socraticam et doinuin 
 Mutare loricis Iberis, 
 
 Pollicttus meliora, tendis? — Car. I. 29. 
 
 Wull, ma bairn ! what's this o't noo? 
 
 Here the wird gangs that ye're listed ! 
 I declared it wisna true. 
 
 But they threepit and insisted : 
 
 Sae ye think to mak* a steer 
 r the weary warl' o' weir? 
 
 Are ye gaun to fecht the Booers, 
 
 Or the Zulus an' the Caffirs? 
 Or defy the Allied Pooers 
 
 For a wheen o* guizened gaffers ? 
 Ye'll be gaun to set them strecht, 
 Ay I an* shaw them hoo to fecht ! 
 
 Eh, man ! tho' the tranquil Tay 
 Roared in spate wi' sudden thunner 
 
 On a ckidless simmer day 
 
 In a drouth — I wadna wunner ! 
 
io6 HORACE IN HOMESPUN. 
 
 Naething noo can startle me 
 When a lad like you's sae ree ! 
 
 We were blawin' lang- an' lood 
 
 O' your pairts an' o' your knowledge ; 
 
 Eh ! the minister was prood 
 When he got ye sent to College ! 
 
 — This is a' ye're makin' o't, 
 
 Prancin' in a scarlet coat ! 
 
 HuGHIE'S address to a jilt — WITH A 
 POSTSCRIPT OF REFLECTIONS. 
 
 Cuijiavajii religas coniaml — Cak. I. 5. 
 
 Weel, Mysie ! wha's the favoured noo 
 
 To tryst wi' ye at e'en ? 
 — He'll be the dentiest chield, I troo, 
 
 That ever yet ye've seen. 
 Ye'll wander by the breery brae — 
 The roses j^2/, the thorns he '11 hae — 
 An' sair, puir man, he'll feel the spell 
 That mony a day I did mysel. 
 
 Nae doot your bonnie yellow hair — 
 
 I ca'd it gowd langsyne — 
 He'll praise wi' sic anither air 
 
 An' flatterin' speech as mine. . . . 
 
HUGHIE HAL/BURTON. 107 
 
 — Puir fallow ! She's a' smooth the noo ; 
 Hut bide avvee till meets his view 
 A veesage thrawn wi' peevish spite, 
 Dorty an' dour, 'ill drive him g}'te ! 
 
 I peety him wi' a' my heart, 
 
 The puir bit silly cratur' ! 
 It's gled he'll be frae her to pairt 
 
 When ance he kens her natur'. 
 Only for his escape I grane 
 Wha am sae joyfu' in my ain ; 
 For blithely do I bless the hoor 
 That saw me safe beyond her pooer I 
 
 Hughie's spring sunshine dashed wi 
 
 SHADOW. 
 
 Solvitnr acris hi ems grata vice veris et Favoni — 
 Vitae snvtma breris, &c. — Cak. I. 4. 
 
 The winter ice is breakin' up, 
 
 The wast wind whustlin' cracks his whup, 
 
 An' noo ye hear their Hi-wo-hup / 
 
 — It's worth the hearin' — 
 As pleuchmen lads wi' steady grup 
 
 Draw oot their feerin'. 
 
io8 HORACE IN HOMESPUN. 
 
 An' noo ere lang we'll see the flooers 
 Drawn fra the divots by the shooers, 
 An' saft win's hing the plantin' booers 
 
 Wi' leaves that rustle, 
 An laricks to the lift a' hoors 
 
 Flee up, an' whustle ! 
 
 It's braw an' blithesome i' the spring 
 
 To see the joy o' everything ; 
 
 Dance, bairns an' bodies, dance an' sing 
 
 ^Ye dae't wi' reason : 
 Whatever joyous thocht ye bring, 
 
 It comes in season ! 
 
 Dance while ye can — sing while ye may, 
 
 For human life's a short-liv'd day; 
 
 — Owre sune, owre sune the gloamin' grey 
 
 Creeps cauld athort it, 
 And we in death oor limbs maun lay 
 
 Where late we sported ! 
 
IIUGHJE HALIBURTON. 109 
 
 Hughie's advice to Tammy to live less 
 for the future and more for the 
 
 PRESENT. 
 
 Nee Babylonios 
 Tentaris luimeros. — Car. I. 11. 
 
 Gie owre thae wuld uncanny looks, 
 That trokin' wi' the deevil's books, 
 That doctorin* o' yoursel wi' simples — 
 It only fills your face wi' pimples — 
 An' learn to live like ither folk 
 Whase trust is in their aitmeal-poke ! 
 
 Ye winna grow ae bit the stranger, 
 
 Ye winna live ae hoor the langer, 
 
 For a' your cairds an' calculations, 
 
 Your auld witch-wifie consultations, 
 
 Your herbs an' drogs, yer drinks an' plaisters, 
 
 An' a* your ither stinkin' slaisters ! 
 
 You'll live nae langer, an' nae less, 
 
 Than a' your days — ye maun confess. 
 
 Dootless ye've heard o' Doctor Faust 
 — He brewed himsel a bonnie browst ! 
 
 But surely it's the manlier gate 
 
 To wait wi' patience on your fate ; — 
 
lo HORACE IN HOMESPUN. 
 
 To sup your parritch, tak' your smoke, 
 An' dee at last like ither folk? 
 This eager wish o' yours to scan 
 The future, an' prolong your span 
 — It's far frae gude, it's doonricht bad, 
 Half irreligious, an' half mad ! 
 
 What better would ye be to ken 
 
 Hoo niony years ye've yet to spen'? 
 
 — For past the boon's ye couldna lengthen't, 
 
 An' what there's o't ye couldna strengthen't ! 
 
 Ye'd only live a life dementit, 
 
 An' dee alane an' unlamentit ! 
 
 Tammy, my man ! tak' my advice, 
 
 An' follow't, an' we'll ca' ye wice ! 
 
 Draw in your hopes, an' keep your fears 
 
 Commensurate wi' your mortal years ; 
 
 Enjoy the present — crack your joke, 
 
 An' tak' your dram wi' sober folk ! 
 
 Gie owre — tho' I should tire your patience — 
 
 Gie owre thae lang anticipations ! 
 
 They pushion a' the passin' hoor 
 
 An' turn a sweet intil a soor ! 
 
 An' a' this sacrifeece for what? 
 Juist think, afore ye answer that. 
 Noo ! answer fair, an' I'll be dumb : 
 — A future that may 7iever come / 
 
HUGHIE IIALIBURTON. in 
 
 Hughie's thoughts on love, suggested by 
 Sandie's plight. 
 
 Sic visum Veneri, cui placet impares 
 Fornias atqiie animos sub jnga aenea 
 
 Scevo miitere cum j'oco ! — Car. L 33. 
 
 Hoot, Sandie ! this 'ill never dae ! 
 Ye're juist a perfeck winnlestrae — 
 
 Ye're no' a man ava ! 
 Look up, an' see the licht o' day 
 
 Afore yer gloamin' fa' ! 
 
 Tho' Bess, sae proper an' perjink, 
 Ne'er deigns on ye to cast a blink 
 
 For a' ye're like to dee — 
 Ye're no' alane, ye needna think 
 
 — Look roon' ye, an' ye'll see ! 
 
 For ane, that puir bit lassie, Bell, 
 Thinks mair o' Allan than hersel. 
 
 An' ony gate she'd gae wi' 'im ! 
 He's juist as daft for saucy Nell, 
 
 An' sheW hae nocht to dae wi' *im ! 
 
 — This warld's jummled a' throuither ! 
 An* noo we staund as in a swither. 
 
 On ithers* folly thinkin* ; 
 An' noo we tig wi' ane anither, 
 
 An' miss oor mates wi' jinkin' ! 
 
HORACE IN HOMESPUN. 
 
 For (in yer lug) juist look at me ! 
 Blithe Jenny withoot ae bawbee 
 
 Has a' my wuts discardit ; 
 While Nance, wi' tocher fair an' free, 
 
 Smiles sweetly unregardit ! 
 
 HUGHIE JILTED AGAIN : HE DERIVES CONSOLA- 
 TION FROM PROPHECY. 
 
 Ast ego vicisshn risero. — Epou, 15. 
 
 I mind the place, I mind the hoor 
 — It was ahint the castle tow'r 
 Just as the mune wi' muirlan' glow'r 
 
 Rase owre the plantin,' 
 An' hoolets blinkin' frae their bow'r 
 
 Begoud their chantin' ! 
 
 Aroond my neck ye flang your airms, 
 An' swore by death an' ither hairms 
 Henceforth to dedicate your chairms 
 
 Alane to me ! 
 I wadna, no ! for fifty fairms 
 
 Niffered that lee ! 
 
 For lee it was ! Within a week 
 Willie, the hauflin', gat a keek 
 
HUGIIIE HALIBURTON. 
 
 An' saw ye lift your perjured cheek 
 To Wabster's mou' ! 
 
 An' heard ye in a whisper speak 
 The self-same voo ! 
 
 But bide awee ! the time'U come 
 At him an' a' ye'U tak' a strum ! 
 Then back to me ! — But I'll be dumb, 
 
 Or bid ye gae ! 
 An' ye, wha thocht yoursel a plum, 
 
 I'll coont a slae ! 
 
 Wabster, my man ! a word to you ! 
 — The hoor's at hand when ye'll alloo 
 That never limmer mair untrue 
 
 Cam' to the clachan : 
 Then ye'll be dowf an' doun i' mou', 
 
 An' I'll be lauchin' ! 
 
 HUGHIE BIDS FAREWEEL TO LOVE. 
 Tange ChloSn seinel arrogantem.'—^w.. III. 26. 
 
 I'm dune wi' love for ance an' a* ! 
 — Nae mair noo at the gloamin's fa' 
 I'll wash my whuskers, redd my hair, 
 An* busk my craig wi* muckle care, 
 
 H 
 
114 HORACE IN HOMESPUN. 
 
 Syne, whustlin' up some amorous od, 
 Oot wi' my staff, an' to the road ! 
 
 Nae mair wi' pain I'll warstle thro' 
 Nettles and breers an' thorns to pu' 
 A posie for some bonnie May, 
 Whase smile micht maybe last the day, 
 — But when the morn again ye met her 
 She'd be ta'en up wi' some ane better ! 
 
 An' never mair I'll praise again, 
 
 In simple sang o' soothin' strain, 
 
 Deep-dimpled chin an' cherry mou'. 
 
 An' locks wi' sunlicht blinkin' thro', 
 
 — Nor saft blue een, nor black, nor broun : 
 
 I've haen a turn o' them a' roun' ! 
 
 Sonnets an' sangs, I lay them by 
 Whar' a' my youthfu' memories lie ; 
 My Sabbath braws, the coat-tail pocket 
 Wi* keepsake flooers an' favours stockit ; 
 Sweeties ; and a' the ither arts 
 I've tried — to win the lassies' hearts ! 
 
 But ere I gie't up a' thegither 
 Grant me a conquest owre ae ither, 
 You that wi' bended bow are lauchin' 
 To hear us wi' your arrows scrauchin'— 
 I've haen my day, I've haen the maist o't, 
 — Gie saucy Tibbie noo a taste o't ! 
 
HUGHIE HALIBURTON. 115 
 
 hughie offers his consolations to his 
 Sister Meenie, whase heart is wi' 
 Donald in Lochiel. 
 
 Miseranivi est neqtie amort dare liidum neqne dulci 
 Mala vino lar/ere, aut exanintari metuentes 
 Patruce verbera lingua. — Car. IIL 12. 
 
 'Od, Meenie, but I'm vexed for ye ! 
 — A lad could better thole, ye see, 
 
 The pains o' love unspoken ; 
 For he could speak — an' he could pree 
 
 A gless, hooe'er heart-broken ! 
 
 But you, puir wumman ! need to bide 
 Tongue-tied aboot the ingleside, 
 
 Baith dowff an' dowie, hearin' 
 Girnin' auld Nance, as gleg as gley'd, 
 
 Your ailment sweetly speirin' ! 
 
 — 'Deed, Donald is a stately chiel' ! 
 There's no* a gamie in Lochiel 
 
 Sae brisk-like or sae daurin*; 
 Gin ye should wale a lad, atweel, 
 
 Ye micht hae waled a waur ana ! 
 
 The loch he'll soum to conquer there 
 
 The stag that stan's in fierce despair 
 
 'Mang seggs, sae eerie sough in' ; 
 
ii6 HORACE IN HOMESPUN. 
 
 He'll rouse the wul'-cat frae her lair 
 To mak' o' her a spleuchan ! 
 
 Nae doot he is a. wiselike lad : 
 But mony as gude are to be had ; 
 
 An' ye maun mind, my dawtie, 
 Tho' Nance is an ill-natur'd jaud, 
 
 Ye've been a wee thing fauty. 
 
 Whan dreigh an' drearie doun ye sit, 
 Up wi' your wires, an' knit, an' knit, — 
 
 Ye'd wonner, withoot jokin', 
 Hoo muckle ravell'd care ye'll pit 
 
 Awa' into a stockin'. 
 
 HUGHIE AS A PHILOSOPHER : HE ENFORCES 
 THE GOLDEN MEAN. 
 
 Auream quisquis vtediocritatem 
 Diligtt. — Car. IL io. 
 
 The course a gude sailor wad haud at the sea 
 Is neither owre muckle to win'ward nor lee, 
 For on this side's the tempest, on that are the 
 
 rocks 
 — But he steers straucht atween an' keeps clear 
 
 o' a' shocks. 
 
HUGHIE HALIBURTON. 117 
 
 Noo that's juist the mean ye should follow on 
 
 land : 
 — The wun's 'ill wage war wi' your castle sae 
 
 grand ; 
 Your puir cottar -hoose they'll ding doun a' 
 
 thegither; 
 — Ye shouldna seek aither the tane nor the 
 
 tither ! 
 
 The fir on the hill-tap maun weather the storm, 
 Maun face the fell winter in terriblest form ; 
 The gress on the plain maun be trampled and 
 
 trodden, 
 Wi' spates an' wi' rains be disfeegur'd and 
 
 sodden. 
 
 Ye're baskin' i' sunshine, yoursel and your 
 
 hoose? 
 Weel, a' body's no'— mind that an' be douce I 
 An' gin ye hae ever o' troubles your fill, 
 Think some are waur aff an' ye'U no' be sae ill ! 
 
 The haund that brocht on ye the cauld and the 
 
 snaw — 
 The same, wi' ae waffo't, 'ill tak' them awa ; 
 Then binna perplext, but tak' a' wi' a mind 
 That's brave when it's patient, an' wise when 
 
 resign'd. 
 
ii8 HORACE IN HOMESPUN. 
 
 HUGHIE IN MURNINS : HE LAMENTS THE LOSS 
 
 o' HIS frien' Andro. 
 
 Ergo Quinctilium perpetmis so^or 
 Urgetl—CKV.. I. 24. 
 
 What man or minister 'ill dare 
 Hand oot his haun' an' cry — Forbear ! 
 This wild, this waefu' sorrow spare; 
 
 It's Nature's debt ! 
 —But I will band an' weepers wear 
 
 For Andro yet ! 
 
 O for the wail o* autumn wun's, 
 An' trees, an' seas, an' settin' suns, 
 An' melancholy muirland whuns 
 
 An' hillside sadness ! 
 O for the greetin' voice that runs 
 
 Thro' Nature's gladness ! . 
 
 So Andro's gane ! The lang last sleep 
 Has fa'en upon him, an' he's deep ! 
 An' noo he disna hear a cheep 
 
 O' a' we're taulkin' ! 
 An' we in vain oor watch wad keep 
 
 For him to wauken ! 
 
HUG HIE HALIBURTON. 
 
 It's no' the stroke, tho' fell an' grim, 
 The bosom cauld, the moveless limb, 
 That melt an' mak' oor een sae dim, 
 
 Oor Herts sae sair — 
 But oh ! what virtues sleep wi' him 
 
 That's lyin' there ! 
 
 He was sae modest an* sae true — 
 Truth was engraven on his broo ! 
 Strict wi' himsel, an' slack wi' you. 
 
 An* even-mindit — 
 His peer, search a' the warl' thro'. 
 
 Ye winna find it ! 
 
 An* noo he's gane ! he's crost the mark 
 Atween us an* that ocean dark 
 Whauron some day oor ain frail bark 
 
 Maun sink or sail ! 
 — But here nae mair we'll hear or hark 
 
 His kindly hail ! 
 
HORACE IN HOMESPUN. 
 
 HUGHIE MAKES IT UP WITH TiBBIE. 
 Rejectceque patetja7iua Lydice.—Q,K^. III. 9. 
 
 He. 
 
 The days afore we disagreed 
 
 When you were sweet an' kind — 
 
 Ah ! thae were happy days, indeed ; 
 They'll never leave my mind ! 
 
 She. 
 
 They would been happy yet, say I, 
 Had ye been kind an' true : 
 
 That e'er thae happy days gaed by 
 Was a' the faut o' you ! 
 
 He. 
 
 Ye maunna think frae what I've said 
 That it's a* owre wi' me — 
 
 There lives in yonder manse a maid 
 I'm juist as happy wi' ! 
 
 She. 
 
 An' dinna think that /am sad 
 Or would to grief incline — 
 
 There waits in yonder loan a lad, 
 I'm blithe to ca' him mine ! 
 
HUG HIE HA LIB UR TON. 
 
 He. 
 
 But, maybe, if I left the maid, 
 — Tho' that would gie me pain ! — 
 
 Maybe ye wouldna shake your head, 
 But tak' me back again ? 
 
 She. 
 
 O ye're a fickle faithless chiel*. 
 
 As fause as ever spak', 
 Yet vveel ye ken I'm yours, an' weel 
 
 Ye ken ye're welcome back ! 
 
 The critic at last relents : Hughie as 
 
 AN eagle ! 
 Jam jam residunt cruribus aspera ! — Car. II. 20. 
 
 What, Davie ! d'ye say't o' me 
 That I'm a bard an' born to flee ? 
 — I doot it's juist a bonnie lee 
 
 That ye've inventit ! 
 — Na ! if ye threep it, it maun be ; 
 
 But ye maun prent it ! 
 
 I wunner whatna bird Til be ! 
 — 'Od, if the choice be left to me, 
 
HORACE IN HOMESPUN. 
 
 I'll be an eagle ! Wha but he 
 
 To rule the air ! 
 The verra sun wi' open ee 
 
 He can ootstare ! 
 
 His flicht is owre the cludds o' heaven 
 — He screams abune the flashin' levin 
 That sends the v^ee fools terror-driven 
 
 Hame when they see't ! 
 The heichest hills are thunder-riven 
 
 Aneath his feet ! 
 
 Nae peer has he ! an' wha wad daur 
 The rushin' o' his wings in war? 
 Or seek wi* impious bolt to bar 
 
 His plumaged pride? 
 Nae fear has he ! his flicht is far, 
 
 His empire wide ! 
 
 — Already doun my sides I feel 
 The feathers creepin' ! on my heel 
 Twa spurs stick oot as sharp as steel ! 
 
 My wings are risin' ! 
 I'm ready for the lift ! fareweel ! 
 
 I'm aff, bird-guizin' ! 
 
 Wi' ae waff o' my wings I soar 
 A mile abune the city's roar — 
 
HUG HIE HALIBURTON, 123 
 
 Then roun' the wad', shore efter shore, 
 
 Wi* pinions regal 
 I flee a Strang flicht wi' the core, 
 
 A brither eagle ! 
 
 Homer flees first — for wha wad seek 
 To tak' that honour fra the Greek ? * 
 Then Pindar wi' triumphant beak 
 
 An' bluidy talons 
 — Tho', whyles, he whummles wi' a shriek 
 
 Clean aff" his balance ! 
 
 Then comes a lower flicht — but still 
 Far far abune oor heichest hill ; 
 Yon's Virgil wi' his weel-preen'd quill, 
 
 An' this is Horace ; 
 — A band o* eaglets screamin' shrill 
 
 Mak* up the chorus ! 
 
 But wha is this wi' brunt ee-bree 
 An' scowther'd on the wings awee ? 
 It's Dante : he delights to flee 
 
 A' by himsel. 
 The fire that's in his flamin* ee 
 
 He stole fra hell ! 
 
 An' yonder, noo, ye may descrj- 
 Shakespeare an' Milton ridin* by. 
 
124 HORACE IN HOMESPUN. 
 
 Dimmin' the haill dome o' the sky, 
 Their ain dominion ; 
 
 While far — far — far aneath them, I 
 Streek oot my pinion ! 
 
 But yet it's graun' to sail the air 
 
 Altho' a mile below the pair ; 
 
 To flap yer wings owre earthly care, 
 
 Owre kirk an' steeple. 
 An' see them point lo here I lo there I 
 
 — The gapin' people ! 
 
 Nae mound nor monument for me 
 
 — An eagle-poet canna dee ! 
 
 But when the lichtnin' flashes free, 
 
 The tempest sings, 
 — Look up ! an' in the tumult see 
 
 My eagle wings ! 
 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS. 
 
Lately published. 
 
 ORELLANA, 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS. 
 
 By J. LOGIE ROBERTSON, M.A. 
 
 Fcap. 8vo. Printed on hand-made paper, 6s. 
 
 " He has tender love-songs, outbursts of cynicism and satire 
 glowing word-pictures of natural scenery, and clever studies of 
 rhythm and metre, — all of them characterised by a very dis- 
 tinct individuality and artistic isiciWiy ." —Scotsman 
 
 " Many have a sub-humourous tone. In this Mr Robertson 
 seems to excel. ' A Gift for a Bride ' seems to us particularly 
 good." — Spectator, 
 
 "The talented author has a fine eye for nature, and can 
 describe its varying scenes with a freshness, a truthfulness, and 
 often with a brilliancy which enchain the attention and posi- 
 tively extort admiration."— £"^/«^;/r^/t Daily Review. 
 
 "Is full of fire and vigour." — Whitefiall Review. 
 
 " Displays an originality that constrains the most earnest at- 
 tention, and awakens sensations even in the case-hardened critic 
 
 of unalloyed delight They offer a rich variety, both as to 
 
 tone and treatment. Graphic {lortraiture both of human char- 
 acter and natural scenery, spiritual insight, pathos, and humour. 
 
will be found in them. . . . . . .If it were only for its exquisite 
 
 interpretation of the northern scenes with which we are all 
 familiar — though that is but one of its merits — we should have 
 no hesitation in giving Mr Robertson's book a high place among 
 
 the very best productions of the modern Scottish muse 
 
 He can be as nimble, neat, and dainty in his lighter moods as 
 any Dobson or Locker; yet he ascends to heights which the 
 choicest of these writers could not by any possibility reach, and 
 no matter how high he soars, he remains as spontaneous and 
 
 single as in his humblest lilt The poem (Orellana) will 
 
 be read through- at a sitting by every one who begins it." — 
 North British Daily Mail. 
 
 " ' From the Sicilian of Vicortai ' is the title above a small 
 collection of beautiful and delicate verses. We presume that it 
 is Sir Theodore Martin who has given us the pleasure of meet- 
 ing such beauty in so fair a di'ess. The style has near kin to 
 the dream-wrapt passion of Heine, and the measure flows as 
 if Poehad come to sing from his tomb." — Greenock Ad-oertiser 
 (in review of ' Blackwood's Magazine' for December 1880). 
 
 " The story is told with poetic grace, and many of the tropical 
 scenes are represented with a warmth of colouring which only 
 a poet can give." — Du7idee Co7irier. 
 
 " Mr Robertson whose touch is so delicate, and whose 
 
 fancy is so graceful Plenty to read, to re-read, and 
 
 thoroughly to enjoy." — Sunday Times. 
 
 "'From the Sicilian of Vicortai' is throughout marked by 
 tenderness and elevation of sentiment, and no little melodious- 
 ness of verse." — Aberdeen Free Press. 
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON. 
 
1,